Apartment Women

A group of women navigate the pressure to be perfect mothers in this piercing domestic drama from Gu (The Old Woman with the Knife). The story unfolds in an experimental communal apartment complex outside Seoul, where residents are expected to have at least three children in exchange for government subsidies. Yojin, a pharmacy cashier, moves in with her husband, Euno, a frustrated filmmaker and stay-at-home dad, and their six-year-old daughter, Siyul. They join three other families, all chosen by lottery as part of a pilot program to help boost the country’s birth rate. Yojin resents how Siyul, as the oldest among the four families’ children, is saddled with watching the younger kids in the communal daycare run by Danhui. Tensions increase as Yojin begins to suspect that Danhui’s husband, Jaegang, is hitting on her. Meanwhile, freelance illustrator Hyonae cannot find time to work amid the demands of mothering, and her neighbor Gyowon faces criticism online after she seeks secondhand clothes and accessories for her children. Gu’s quick pacing tends to merely skim the surface, but as the women’s frustrations reach a boiling point, she keenly portrays the toll taken by gendered expectations. This is a perceptive novel of motherhood’s double binds. Agent: Marina Penalva, Cassnovas & Lynch. (Dec.)