My Lovely Angel

Lee Chang-won's 2021 Korean film is about Jae-shik, who has attached himself to nobody his whole life, beginning to live with a child who is both deaf and blind. He agrees to it out of self-interest; at first what he has to attend to is a transaction rather than a responsibility. At the centre is how communication can be established. Because speech and sight are unavailable, a language based on touch has to be learned; the narrative does not accelerate that learning and does not hide its difficulty. Jin Goo plays the adult. The film steers the emotion too openly at times and supports it with music; against that, it does not present the disabled character as a figure to be rescued. Who it's for: those who like Korean drama and narratives about communication. Who it's not for: viewers who avoid emotional manipulation; the film uses it markedly in several scenes.