The Call, directed by Lee Chung-hyun and written by Lee and Kang Sun-ju, tells the story of Seo-yeon (Park Shin-hye) who gets connected with Young-sook (Jun Jong-seo) through her cordless phone. But the twist is that Young-sook is in 1999 while Seo-yeon is in 2019. Initially, the two women save each other from their doom. However, as all time-travel stories go, things take a sinister turn as soon as both of them understand that they can influence each other’s fates, with Young-sook having the upper hand. Its take on time-travel is interesting and steeped in ’90s nostalgia. And with some neat storytelling and riveting performances from the lead actors, it ends up being one of the best horror-thrillers out there.
I am going to be very honest, I was kind of getting sick of the whole ‘70s and ‘80s nostalgia vibe. I mean I understand why the entertainment industry went through this phase. Most of the directors and writers who were getting mainstream attention had grown up during that period and wanted to immortalise it in their own way and it was becoming profitable as well. But I think that kind of peaked with Stranger Things and then started to fizzle. So, I am glad we are done with that and are now making our way into ‘90 nostalgia. I agree that it wasn’t as glorious and hip as the ‘70s and ‘80s. The fashion was kind of weird. The computers were thick (In a non-horny way, of course)? The music was goddamn awesome. The movies and shows were cringe-supreme. However, as a ‘90s kid, it’s comforting and I am glad that I kind of got to relive it through a taut horror-crime-thriller like The Call.
The Call is directed by Lee Chung-hyun. It is written by Kang Sun-ju and Lee and based on The Caller by Matthew Parkhill. The music is by Dalpalan, cinematography by Jo Young-jik, editing by Yang Jin-mo. It features Park Shin-hye as Seo-yeon, Jun Jong-seo as Oh Young-sook, Kim Sung-ryung as Eun-ae, Seo-yeon’s mother, Lee El as Jao-ok, Young-sook’s mother, Oh Jung-se as Seong-ho, Lee Dong-hwi as Baek Mi-hyun, and Park Ho-san as Mr. Kim i.e. Seo-yeon’s father. The story begins with Seo-yeon, who has lost her father at a very young age and her mother is suffering from a brain illness, returning to her home. She has lost her phone on her way there and comes across a cordless phone. She uses it to track down her phone but keeps getting calls from a distressed woman. After ignoring it a few times and doing some digging around in her home, she finally talks to her and realises that the calls are coming from 20 years ago in the past!
Lee Chung-hyun and Kang Sun-ju structures The Call’s story in a way that’ll constantly keep you guessing.
When we’re introduced to Seo-yeon, she comes off as this tragic character who has come to see her mother through her last days although they have a problematic relationship. Our real-world values make us think that she must be a good person then. The same goes for Young-sook who comes as even more tragic as she is being mistreated by her stepmother who is a shaman. Again, our real-world values make us think that she’s the damsel-in-distress that needs to be rescued. And I think that they do stick to those archetypes for a sizable chunk of the first act until it’s slowly flipped on its head thereby making it a spine-chilling cat-and-mouse chase between two timelines. But as soon as you get to establish your allegiances and (Not a huge spoiler) begin to side with Seo-yeon, it’s flipped yet again through some clever omission of details that you actually don’t know who is the protagonist and who’s the antagonist, thereby putting those real-world values we were trusting blindly to test pretty aggressively.
After watching the movie, I tried to find some kind of subtext to this whole story. As in, what does this tussle between Seo-yeon and Young-sook actually mean? Are their fates intertwined with each other because of their relationship with their respective mothers? One is trying to do right by her mother and other is actually playing into the future predicted by her mother (I am not going to reveal who I am talking about specifically for the sake of spoilers). Is it because they live/lived in the same house and their feelings for it have conjoined their timelines? Is it to bring back the landline (Just kidding)? Well, it could be all of them, it could be one of them, and it could be none of them. Personally speaking, I am okay with it simply being an inter-timeline chase that’s exposing basic human behaviour with every step. Why? Well, because it works as just that and the twists and turns are good enough to keep you invested. It just does. Why would you overcomplicate something that’s working in its simplest form?
Lee Chung-hyun starts off The Call story quite lightly and then goes so hard that you’ll get whiplash! But of the good kind.
For a significant chunk of the first act, Lee maintains a tone that’s tragic and hopeful because that’s where the dynamics of Seo-yeon and Young-sook’s are being laid out and the characters are learning about the rules binding the time-lines. There are hints of the horror that’s about to come via Young-sook’s exorcisms and the cinematography inside the household. But it’s mostly stable. However, after two abrupt conversations between the characters, the tone just shifts wildly into what I can only describe as a mix of anxiety, existential horror, panic, and outright disgust. And it’s shown quite viscerally through a reality-altering sequence (Which are sprinkled throughout the movie and are masterfully done with the help of some practical effects, CGI, and editing). And that’s what separates The Call from your run-of-the-mill science-fiction-horror stories and takes it straight into Dark territory. Lee truly commits to the bizarreness of his premise and stretches it to its maximum without losing focus of who his characters are.
The attention-to-detail in terms of production design, set design, and costume design is really great. Without using any fancy sound effects or visually flashy cues, you easily know which timeline you’re following. From a visual standpoint, you also get that healthy dose of ‘90s nostalgia which actually converges on that cordless phone. I don’t know about the original 2011 movie and how the phone was used there. But here it has a huge presence. Since I haven’t read the script, I don’t if it was there in the text. However, after closely examining every shot in which the phone comes up, I think there’s a subliminal message about our bond with the past or at least the objects that connect us with it. When they’re kept in a respectable position, that means that you care about it. When it is shoved into a corner in a box where it is collecting dust, that means you don’t. And that mirrors our overall relationship with nostalgia and how we allow it to impact us. Or maybe I am looking a little too deeply into this.
Park Shin-hye as Seo-yeon and Jun Jung-seo as Young-sook deliver magnetic performances in The Call.
I am pretty sure I can see Park and Jun go for each other’s jugulars all day long because they’re that awesome! And you know what the fun part is, they’re in the same frame for maybe two-three minutes. Yes, in the whole movie. Imagine establishing a vicious rivalry without even being in front of each other for practical 90-minutes of your film’s screentime. Well, don’t worry because you don’t have to. You can just watch these two act the shit out of their roles in The Call. On top of that, I think acting over a telephone is insanely difficult because you’re reacting to nothing, right? Okay, even if there is a voice cue on-stage, you aren’t making eye contact or have any idea about the pitch of the actor on the other side of the line. That must make it tough to be on the same plane of acting. However, these two, with the help of Lee of course, somehow do it and it is undeniably mind-blowing to watch.
Alright, enough about the mechanics of the performance. Let’s come to the performance itself. I think that more than Jun, Park is the heart of the movie. She almost urges us to empathise with Seo-yeon and in my opinion, she does it successfully. I was crying when she was crying after seeing Mr. Kim for the first time in a long time (I cry easily but credit where credit is due. Both of the actors sold that scene). Coming to Jun, she clearly had more meat (Or veggies if she’s a vegetarian) to chew on and she chews it so well. The way she uses her physicality and looks through her eyebrows really put the ‘F’ in the fear in my heart. She steals every scene she’s in. I was in awe of how nonchalant she becomes with every kill, as if there’s no soul to corrupt, and how she reflects that through her eyes by making them more and more lifeless. I honestly wish that The Call gets the sequel it has teased so that I can see more of Jun’s killer performance!
Final verdict.
Please go and watch The Call. It is a well-crafted science-fiction horror-thriller by Lee Chung-hyun that managed to keep me at the edge of my seat. So, I am pretty sure it’s going to have the same effect on you (Unless your senses are dialed down to minus eleven or something). If you aren’t a fan of any of the aforementioned genres, please watch it for Park Shin-hye and Jun Jeong-seo’s performances. It’s some of the best acting that I have seen this year and I think it deserves all the love and attention in the world. And I know that I usually conclude my reviews with a deep message that I hope will resonate with everyone. But in a first, my parting note this time will be… just make good movies with an even better rivalry at the center. F*ck it if you don’t have a profound theme in your story. The ‘90s were full of them and since that era is making a comeback, just put two morally ambiguous people in your script and go ham with it and I will recommend it to everyone I can. I promise!
