Wonderfully funny, warm, surprising, and beautiful...though not ever astonishing

Rating: 8/10 (3 February 2020)

Parasite (2019)
With the hype around this movie ("best in ten years") I had unreasonable expectations. This is a funny, almost silly story with great acting, and with a couple of twists that make it inventive. It's also filmed (photographed) with gorgeous care, lots of gently moving camera, a lot of planning of shots from one to the next to tell the story visually. It's an example of classic great moviemaking.
I thought the acting was especially sharp, like the complex job the leading woman, Yeo-jeong Jo, had of seeming a bit ditzy and selfish and yet not completely lost at sea. And the rest of the cast played types that didn't tumble into stereotypes. The story was smart enough to give them room to be complex, but this isn't a probing complex movie, actually. The content is in the improbable situation and how it leads, almost in a Chaplin-like building of absurdities, to comic tension.
The cameraman, Kyung-pyo Hong, deserves credit, for sure, because he holds the visual structure together in a range of scenes-racing down dingy steps, a downpour in the slums, and graceful geometry in the fabulous house. Director Bong Joon Ho deserves the praise he is getting.
That said, the next thoughts are more a reaction to the praise it's been getting: there are more impressive movies out there in various ways. Even just this year there are movies that have movied me more, or made me laugh more, or were more inventive. (I'm not naming movies.) Maybe since this movie manages all three it's notable, but I'll keep my admiration in place!
Enjoy it!