Critic Reviews

In Another Country is a paragon of any given Hong movie's intrinsic charms, and yet it also manages to break from the pattern by including an English-speaking character as one of its leads.

Hong Sang-soo hits the beach once again in his latest project, another austerely amusing study of hopeless neurotics making a mockery of leisure.

Hong's fast-and-loose narrative silliness does require a certain amount of patience from the viewer. Plot details conflict, and assumptions about a character's role and relationships will probably be upended - but all to fascinating or greatly comic effect.

Beguilingly simple, relaxed in its mastery and enhanced by Isabelle Huppert’s impeccable poise.

The conceit is slight, but Hong's playful structure conceals sharp observations about fantasies, communication, and how foreigners and natives interact.

If you stare at it too hard, In Another Country, an exercise in drollery from South Korea's Hong Sang-soo, simply evaporates. But if you take the film as the bauble it is, you'll be entertained by its lighthearted wit, social observations and resolute sidestepping of profundity.

Two arthouse "worlds" collide with amusing and intriguing -- if hardly earth-shattering -- results in cult Korean writer-director Hong Sangsoo's In Another Country.

The cumulative impression is of figures being lightly traced in the sand only to be inevitably washed away, intentionally ephemeral and quite charming for it.

What the point here might be is a bit more elusive. It may be simply to allow Ms. Huppert, one of the most adventurous actresses in movies, the opportunity to try something new. And that might be enough.

The latest from the prolific helmer is not so much slight as is it light, charming and funny by equal turns, with a pretty terrific performance by Huppert who seems to be having a lot of fun with the part(s).