Working Stiffs: Review of No Other Choice
★★★★
Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
Park Chan-wook’s black comedy thriller No Other Choice opens with an idyllic sequence of suburban family life in South Korea. A father, Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-Hun), is grilling in the backyard of his childhood home with his family. His beautiful wife Lee Miri (Son Ye-Jin), his children Si-One (Kim Woo-seung) and Ri-One (Choi So-yu), are all together, enjoying the last breath of summer. Miri is gushing about his cooking and the wonderful eel his company provided him and is ecstatic about the new dancing shoes Man-su bought her. Their two big fluffy dogs Si-Two and Ri-Two are romping through the yard. The whole sequence might have come from an ad for a Target commerical.
This portrait of a happy family proves to be built on the flimsiest of foundations after Man-su learns that because of new automation he is getting fired from the papermaking company where he has worked for over twenty-five years. He assures his family that he will find work again within three months, but after nothing materializes, Man-su grows so desperate, he drops to his knees and begs a prospective employer for help, humiliating himself completely.
Because of the financial crunch, the family has to cut back. Miri must give up her dancing lessons, they have to cancel their Netflix subscription, and send the dogs to their grandparents’ house to live. Ri-One’s music teacher tells her parents the girl is a cello prodigy and should be taught by a more qualified teacher—a very expensive teacher. Then when Man-su learns that he must either sell his home or face foreclosure proceedings, he comes up with a plan to eliminate the competition—all the other laid-off paper industry employees.
First, he concocts a bogus company and puts out an ad looking for qualified workers. When the applications start coming in, Man-su sorts them according to qualifications with the intent of killing all those more qualified than himself.
His first target in Goo Beom-mo (Leo Sung-min), another laid-off paper expert who has become a drunk over his firing. Man-su stalks the man and follows him and his tempestuous wife Lee A-ra (Yeom He-ran) into the woods on a picnic. As he eavesdrops on the couple, he realizes that they are decent people trying to cope with their incredible misfortune. Nevertheless, for the good of his own family, Man-su proceeds with his plane. Mishap follows mishap during the murder attempt, culminating in a surprising twist at the end.
His next victim, Ko Si-Jo (Cha Seung-won) another paper engineer who is working at a shoe store to make ends meet. Man-su goes to the store and they have a conversation in which Man-su learns Si-jo also has a daughter. Undeterred, he proceeds with his plan.
Man-su’s final victim is Choi Seon-chu (Park Hee-soon) who is a manager of a prominent paper company, whose murder is a masterpiece of planning and cunning.
As Man-su is plotting and scheming his way bloody path to gainful employment, his wife Miri has taken a job as a dental assistant. Her handsome young boss seems smitten with her and Man-su is stricken with jealousy at the dance party the two are supposed to attend. Man-su worries that his failure to provide for his family is causing her to lose her respect and love, but as Man-su works to cover up his crimes, Miri and his son start to suspect what he’s doing and begin to wonder what’s buried under the apple tee.
While No Other Choice is a mash-up of a black comedy, a crime film, and a thriller, as a criminal, echoes of the dehumanizing effects of downsizing the workplace resonate throughout the entire film. Alcoholism, petty crime, humiliations, and marital infidelities are collateral damages to the ruthlessness of the bottom line. For Man-su, maintaining the economic status quo becomes a struggle of kill or be killed—survival of the fittest. The job market literally becomes a hunting ground.
When his wife and son discover the truth behind Man-su’s “job interviews”, they say nothing to him or to the police inspectors who drop by to ask him about the disappearances and to warn Man-su his life might too be in danger. Their complicity is inextricably linked to their economic well-being. Young Si-one even resorts to crime in order to get the things he believes he needs.
To preserve his family, his lifestyle, his dignity, the love and respect of his wife and children, Man-su becomes as ruthless a competitor as the bosses who fired him. In his desperate quest to maintain the status quo, he sacrifices his fellow workers, men very much like himself. His family not only accepts who he has become, they condone it.
Park Chan-wook has intertwined this dark fable of ruthlessness and ambition with a comedic thread that not only underlines the desperation of these working-class men but highlights the absurdity of their lives as corporate servants, that these men are helpless without employment and useless as human beings. This film is not only a scathing comment on corporate greed and inhumanity, it decries the lack of solidarity among workers. At the beginning of the film, Man-su unsuccessfully tries to organize workers. Later, he ignores the similarities between himself and the men he seeks to eliminate. It is survival of the fittest.
Chan-wook makes a number of fascinating and bold choices in this production. Belying the sordid and violent nature of the plot, he films the beautiful autumn landscape with stunningly saturated colors, as if to demonstrate that the beauty of the world is lost on the unemployed Man-su.
The characterization of Man-su’s daughter Ri-one, a brilliant and autistic young cellist who refuses to speak to anyone expect to repeat them, is captivatng. She will not play for anyone in the family until near the end after Man-su gets the job and the family dogs return home.
The acting is nothing short of magnificent. At the beginning, Man-su is a worse bumbler than Inspector Clouseau of the Pink Panther franchise—although he does get better with practice. In his portrayal of Man-su, actor Lee Byung-hun is a not only a master of physical comedy, but he (unlike Clouseau) conveys a sort of everyman shrewdness in his desperation, not unlike Jack Lemmon in The Apartment (who’s also trying to get ahead). The supporting cast, especially Son Ye-jin as Mi-ri, is equally as brilliant. As Lee A-ra, Goo’s wife, Yeom Hi-Ran is hilarious.
No Other Choice is a devastating look at what capitalism can not only do to a person, but to a family and a society. In their quests for security, happiness, and dignity, Man-su descends into barbarity, cruelty, decadence, and worse, but Park Chan-wook has portrayed these actions as exercises in the absurd. While putting food on the table or a roof over one’s head is far from ridiculous, chaining ourselves to a corporate mentality that champions profit over people or efficiency over humanity is beyond absurd.
Man-su is a perfect illustration of what happens when a simple man transforms into the corporate being, when winning is all that matters.
No Other Choice is a brilliantly executed film. It is a condemnation of the capitalist culture that is ruthlessly dehumanizing on both the personal and societal level that is well worth seeing. It should be required for anyone working that nine-to-five job.
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