Pavane Parent Guide

Gyeong-rok (Moon Sang-min) used to dream of being a dancer, but now he finds himself without friends or family, working a dead-end job in a department store parking lot. There he meets Mi-jeong (Ko Ah-sung), a shy  social outcast working in the stock room, and Yo-han (Byun Yo-han), the illegitimate son of the owner who hides his loneliness behind a gregarious personality. As the three slowly become friends, they start to break down the walls they have built and open themselves up to new relationships, even when that means risking heartbreak.

My mother was never a daytime soap opera fan, so I didn’t grow up with soaps and never developed a taste for sudsy melodramas. And Pavane is pure melodrama. It takes itself extremely seriously and strives to tug on the heartstrings of its audience, regardless of whether or not those dramatic twists have been earned. The entire film feels emotionally manipulative, and I didn’t find that it had anything worthwhile to say to justify the dramatics. The script does attempt to probe the nature of love and loneliness, but it never lands on anything memorable or profound.

Script issues aside, Pavane is a well-made movie. The cinematography is beautiful and the acting is superb. I have nothing negative to say about the production values. My main complaints are just with the script, which feels hollow and self-consciously serious. The film itself is slow and contemplative, which isn’t itself a bad thing, but because it lacks meaningful issues to contemplate, it becomes boring. The dramatic twists feel inorganic, simply added for shock value, rather than being part of an emotionally resonant story. It also seems as if some scenes were cut for time, as I occasionally had a hard time following all of the threads.

Though it’s  relatively tame for an adult romantic drama as far as content concerns go, with just some swearing and discussion of suicide to note, I found Pavane too bland to recommend. I can forgive boredom when a story has something interesting to explore, but this one is too unfocused to have anything substantial to say.

About author

Savannah Sillito

Savannah Sillito is a librarian with a master's in library science, a bachelor's degree in English, and a certificate in early childhood education. She enjoys nonfiction books, travel, and is a staunch proponent of the Oxford comma.