“The Ugly”

Adapted from his own debut graphic novel “Face,” writer / director Yeon Sang-ho’s unsettling film “The Ugly” is a haunting exploration of memory, cruelty, and the slippery terrain of moral judgment.

The story follows Dong-hwan (Park Jeong-min), a young man investigating the shadows of his late mother’s life with the aid of a television producer turned investigative reporter (Shin Hyeon-bin). At first, the film plays like a tender father-son drama between Dong-hwan and his gentle, blind father Yeong-gyu (Kwon Hae-hyo). But as Dong-hwan digs deeper, the film begins to unravel darker truths about his mother’s past, including how her supposed “ugliness” condemned her to a lifetime of cruelty and isolation.

The mystery itself isn’t particularly challenging (most viewers will piece together the broad strokes early on), but Yeon makes the journey emotionally compelling. Through flashbacks and interviews with his mother’s family and peers, the film illustrates the difficult life she led. There are stories of children mocking her as a young girl, abuse at the hands of a parent, coworkers casually recounting their decades-old bullying with a smirk, and a community complicit in its indifference. These recollections sometimes feel redundant, as flashbacks echo what has already been told a slow down the pacing. Yet they also serve a thematic function as stories are repeated and change as they’re recounted over generations.

Park Jeong-min is an anchor in a dual role that is both understated and magnetic, embodying two men separated by decades but bound by love, guilt, and longing. The figures around him who once seemed sympathetic reveal themselves as cruel (and vice versa).

Somber and slow burning, “The Ugly” is less about solving a mystery than confronting what cruelty leaves behind. It’s a quiet and meditative work about the scars of childhood, the weight of social cruelty, and the ambiguous morality of remembering.

By: Louisa Moore