Parasite: Horrifyingly Hilarious and Hilariously Horrifying

When I finished watching Parasite, I felt like I had just finished reading a very dense and brilliant novel, brimming with interesting characters, captivating settings, and a bananas plot that relentlessly delivered for two hours straight. It was a deeply satisfying experience; apparently, I need more South Korean films in my life.

Parasite unanimously won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May. So it’s already a critical darling and I went into it knowing that people I respect have a pretty favorable opinion of this movie. Critics can be notoriously weird and I don’t agree with them all the time, but I fell for this movie hook, line, and sinker. The friends I saw it with though, who were Korean and don’t watch a lot of movies, weren’t as taken with it as I was. So it’s definitely an acquired taste.

What’s the movie about? I wish I could tell you, but it’s so important you go into it without knowing too much. Watching the craziness unfurl delicately and then insanely on screen is what makes this a true theatrical delight. Let the title of this review be your guide - this is a movie that is very funny, but also extremely dark and does have some bloody horror elements towards the end. I won’t say why, but there’s a twist halfway through that leads to some extreme violence and an ambiguous ending that I loved because you can interpret it as you would like depending on how optimistic or pessimistic you're feeling that day. And I know that’s generally seen as a cop out in any kind of storytelling (I personally hate any novel that doesn’t end properly), but this movie completely earns its ending and doesn’t make you regret watching anything that came before.

For those who insist on knowing some basic plot, here it is. The movie follows a Korean family in Seoul that lives in a semi-basement (i.e an almost underground apartment where they get a sliver of light from a window but also risk getting peed on by drunk men who like to urinate on the sidewalks at night). They are struggling to get by and work a variety of odd jobs, but when the son gets a chance to tutor the daughter of an exceedingly wealthy family, the family’s fortunes start to reverse, and what follows is an extremely funny hour of deception followed by a grisly hour of comeuppance. It’s a dark movie about what people in dire straits will do to get ahead in life as well as a look at how the wealthy treat their servants and engender the resentment and disparities that pervade society today. Every actor in this film is phenomenal, offering up a nuanced performance that leads you to feel genuinely conflicted about who exactly to root for (the answer is no one).

Parasite is such a genre-bending, wonderful movie. It’s like nothing you’ve seen before. Don’t be fooled by the subtitles and critical acclaim - this is not the stuffy and dramatic kind of "foreign film" that generally becomes awards bait. Instead, this is a refreshing and ridiculous film that signals writer-director Bong Joon Ho might be one of the most creative filmmakers working today. From here on out, I am not missing any movie that this brilliant weirdo makes.