SO YOUNG SHELLY YO | USA | 2023 | 91 MIN | ENGLISH, KOREAN
The world around Hayoung (Ji-young Yoo) is constantly changing, and, like any teenage girl, she struggles to maintain a semblance of balance. Her parents have gone their separate ways and, in the face of financial difficulty, Hayoung’s mother scales things back and moves them into a smaller living space. Despite their mounting monetary challenges, Hayoung’s mother enrolls her in an esteemed academic institution with hopes of ensuring a brighter future. This new school becomes a zone of escapism, and Hayoung befriends an affluent student who exposes her to new adolescent thrills like parties, cute guys, and popularity. But as Hayoung becomes increasingly more comfortable with her wealthy peers, her ailing relationship with her father serves as an inescapable reminder of her duplicity and the reality from which she is so desperately hiding. In her outstanding directorial debut, director So Young Shelly Yo delivers a refreshing Korean-American coming-of-age story that spotlights the pressures of adolescence.
Cast: Ji-young Yoo, Jung Joon Ho, Abin Shim, Erin Choi
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