The Mother and the Bear is a 2024 Canadian-Chilean comedy-drama film written and directed by Johnny Ma.[1] Starring Kim Ho-jung as Sara, a woman from South Korea who flies to Canada after her daughter Sumi (Leere Park), who emigrated to Winnipeg some years earlier, is injured in a fall that has left her comatose, only to discover how much she didn't know about her daughter's life.[2]
| The Mother and the Bear | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Johnny Ma |
| Written by | Johnny Ma |
| Produced by | Juan de Dios Larraín Niv Fichman |
| Starring | Kim Ho-jung |
| Cinematography | Inti Briones |
| Edited by | Valeria Hernández |
| Music by | Marie-Hélène L. Delorme |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Elevation Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 100 minutes |
| Countries | Canada Chile |
| Languages | English Korean |
The cast also includes Lee Won-jae, Jonathan Kim, Amara Pedroso, Samantha Kendrick and Susan Hanson.
The film premiered in the Centrepiece program at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival,[3] followed by a gala screening at the 2024 Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival.[1]
Critical response
editRitesh Mehta of IndieWire graded the film a B, writing that "Any weaknesses lie more in the slightly tired general themes Ma explores. The Mother and the Bear doesn't bring a lot of new material to the familiar narrative of parents becoming enlightened towards their child's sexuality. Even the story engine about the discovery of online dating and the chain of cutesy indiscretions that follows doesn't feel particularly novel. After all, Canada has already given global audiences a series worth of laughs at the expense of ajummas, in Kim's Convenience. Though perhaps that's an unfair comparison; maybe it's because we've chuckled alongside that CBC sitcom, or absorbed the pathos of intergenerational Asian journeys (towards the old country) in films like Return to Seoul and The Farewell, that we're able to better appreciate the subtle intermingling of comedy and drama that Ma and Kim bring about in The Mother and the Bear."[4]
Awards
editAt Cinéfest, the film won the award for Outstanding Canadian Feature.[5]
References
edit- ^ a b Heidi Ulrichsen, "Forget hockey rivalry: Sudbury’s Cinéfest 2024 showing love for North Bay". Sudbury.com, August 22, 2024.
- ^ Kim Izzo, "Five Canadian features among TIFF Centrepiece programme". Playback, August 6, 2024.
- ^ Alex Nino Gheciu, "Dystopian themes, real-world issues spotlighted in Canadian films at TIFF". CityNews, August 22, 2024.
- ^ Ritesh Mehta, "‘The Mother and the Bear’ Review: A Mother Catfishes Her Comatose Daughter in an Endearing Dramedy About Immigrant Loneliness". IndieWire, September 6, 2024.
- ^ "‘The Count of Monte-Cristo’ big winner at Cinéfest Sudbury". Sudbury.com, September 27, 2024.
External links
edit
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