What Would a Mother Do to Save Her Son?

I've been interested in watching Joon-ho Bong's murder mystery "Mother"(2009) for quite some time now. I really like listening to the /Filmcast podcast and this movie was host David Chen's #5 movie of last year. "Mother" revolves around a single mother and her son, who is accused of murder. Knowing her harmless, simple-minded son could not be the perpetrator of the crime, she sets out to prove his innocence when the police of the small town simply accept the flimsy evidence and close the case. More after the jump.


The son, Do-joon, who is accused of the murder is mentally handicapped and always seems several steps behind what is going on. Because of this, when the police start questioning Do-joon on the murder, he gets defensive thinking they are claiming he can't do anything on his own. When one officer says that he's always been a good boy and he could never do anything bad, the son interjects saying "I can do bad things!" Some of the officers take this as a possible confession and tell him to sign his name to a set of confessional pages with the details of the murder. Not realizing what he's doing, he goes ahead and signs the pages, and thus admitting guilt.

The movie definitely has a take on the murder mystery that I haven't seen before. Whether it's entirely original, I'm unsure, but it was new to me and I found it very interesting. Of course the mother primarily wants to prove her son innocent, but then that also means the real killer is still out there. The easiest way to prove he didn't do it is then to find and confront the real murderer. That doesn't deter her in the slightest, and her personal quest takes her places she, and I, never thought she'd go.

The concept is unique, the acting is superb, and the cinematography and even some of the music really stands out. But even after all this praise I was a little underwhelmed. I think in part it's because I had hyped myself up so much for this movie. Certainly it was good, and the movie kept me guessing at who the killer was the whole way up until the end. If this sounds like something you'd like, and you don't mind subtitles, check out Mother by director Joon-ho Bong.