A call center worker in Seoul finds her world turned upside down by unwelcome changes to her solitary routine.
Debut director Hong Sung-eun introduces Jina (Gong Seung-yeon) after she has lost her mother. She takes two days off, and returns to the office as if nothing happened--she likes to work, and she's the top employee in her department.
On the bus and at lunch, Jina is attached to her phone; at home, she is attached to her television. She has no interest in socializing with coworkers or neighbors, and she's horrified when her manager (Kim Han-nah) asks her to train a new colleague. In Korea, loners like Jina (though usually male) are known as honjok. To make matters worse, Jina finds that her mother left everything to her father who abandoned her, even though the couple had been estranged until recently.
Through the surveillance camera she set up in the family living room to keep an eye on her mother, Jina now spies on her father, who has joined the ranks of the aloners. It becomes a habit when the cable goes out in her apartment.
One night, she hears a loud thump in the unit next door, but forgets about it for a week until she notices an unpleasant smell, which she reports to the landlady. It turns out that her neighbor, a fellow loner and cigarette smoker, was crushed to death by stacks of dirty magazines, which seems unlikely but serves as a wake-up call about the perils of isolation.
Meanwhile, call center trainee Sujin (Jun Da-eun) attempts to befriend Jina by buying her coffee and tagging along on trips to her favorite ramen spot, but her efforts are in vain. The genial man (Kim Mo-beom) who moves in next door also finds Jina exasperating. One night in frustration, he snaps, “Do you make it a habit of being pissed off all the time?”
Eventually, it all catches up to Jina: the sadness about her mother, anger at her father, sudden loss of her neighbor, and forced companionship at work. After alienating everyone who has shown her any kindness, she has to learn how to re-engage.
To Hong's credit, Aloners rarely comes across as depressing, though the subject matter might indicate otherwise. She has a light touch, and her cast does, too, though Jina genuinely wounds Sujin with her dismissiveness, and when she finally breaks down, it's like a dam bursting. An actress best known in Korea for TV dramas, Gong excels in her feature-film debut.
If anything, Aloners might have benefited from an expanded running time. Each character is so compelling that it's hard not to want to get to know them better, from Jina's father, who seems more careless than cruel, to the acidic manager who respects her, but isn't especially adept at showing it. Like Fremont, a low-key comedy about an Afghanistan refugee in the Bay Area, Aloners paints a gently comic portrait of modern loneliness and the necessity of making connections...before it's too late.
What public library shelves would this title be on?
Aloners would fit with Korean, Asian, and foreign film sections in public libraries.
What kind of film series would this narrative feature fit in?
A series of films about life in 21st-century South Korea, urban loneliness across the globe, or workplace comedy dramas, like Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You and Jill Sprecher's Clockwatchers, could benefit from the addition of Aloners.
What type of college/university professors would find this title valuable?
Film instructors and Korean studies professors could use Aloners to spark classroom discussions about loneliness among those of the Millennial/Generation Z cohort or mourning rituals and traditions in Korea and other countries.