Counsel Culture

Kim (Central Station) returns with a subtle and effective parable about the consequences of cancel culture. After South Korean therapist Haesoo Lim appears on a TV program to criticize a famous unnamed actor for irresponsible behavior, the actor commits suicide. Blamed for the tragedy, Haesoo finds her reputation, career, and marriage ruined. Years later, she and others who appeared on the show are still hounded in public, and subjected to internet trolling, cyberbullying, and doxing. She spends her reclusive life drafting but never sending letters to the reporter who first denounced her in print, a younger colleague whom she felt betrayed by, and others. While going for a walk one evening she encounters an injured and hungry street cat she names Turnip. The next evening, she befriends Sei, a kind but awkward fourth-grade schoolgirl whose parents are separated and who is being bullied by her dodgeball teammates. Kim does not offer pat solutions or mawkish sentimentality; rather, Haesoo’s attempts to care for Sei and Turnip provide a framework for her defensiveness and self-pity to give way to atonement and healing. The result is an appealing meditation on personal and professional ethics. (Mar.)