Film

In Another Country

Name: In Another Country
Genre: Drama
Released: 2012
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Yu Jun-sang, Jung Yu-mi, Moon Sung-keun, Youn Yuh-jung

Drama

Hong Sang-soo's elliptical chamber piece collapses three narratives into one dreamy foreshore hotel. Isabelle Huppert anchors three variations on arrival, loneliness, and the small mercies strangers offer each other. It's formally playful but emotionally exact—the kind of film that asks you to sit still and pay attention, and rewards you for it.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy Hong Sangsoo's habit of repeating a small situation with slight changes, so that each pass reveals new tenderness and awkwardness in the same people and places.

Skip it if you need a plot that moves forward, since little happens in any single scene and the gentle comedy of misunderstanding can feel thin if you want stakes.

What it asks of you: Its shape is a slow, dry run of unhurried talk, and the same beach and hotel return several times, so settle in for about ninety minutes of close attention.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

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But Extremely slow and cerebral. If you want plot momentum or comfort, this offers neither.

The Day After Tomorrow2004

Hong Sang-soo's formal intelligence applied to a film about time, repetition, and the slipperiness of memory. Small, patient, hypnotic—nothing like disaster cinema despite the title.

But Uses the same actors and situations over and over. Some find that technique maddening rather than illuminating.

After the Winter2013

Another Hong film about small crises and large silences. A woman returns to her hometown, conversations loop and contradict, the emotional weather shifts without warning. Gorgeous and disorienting.

But Plot is minimal. If you need causality and resolution, you will be frustrated.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from In Another Country

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives2010

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Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives poster

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But Demands active engagement. Easy to lose the thread if you're not paying full attention.

Boyhood2014

Richard Linklater shot over twelve years. Small scenes, natural light, characters aging in front of you. The form itself becomes the subject—time as a character in the film.

But Deliberately anti-climactic. Some see it as profound, others as deliberately boring.

The Night House2021

Kiarostami again, a single night in a car with a man and woman circling each other emotionally. Shot almost entirely in darkness, intimate and claustrophobic, about the space between two people.

But Formally extreme. Long static shots of a dark car require patience and generosity from the viewer.

Two Years at Sea2012

Lucile Hadžihalilović's study of a man living alone on an island. Almost no plot, but the texture of solitude and routine is rendered in precise, dreamlike detail.

But Glacially paced. Deliberately withholding. Not for anyone seeking conventional narrative.

Still Life2006

Jia Zhangke's portrait of three people passing through a small town before it floods. Elliptical, melancholic, about displacement and the weight of staying or leaving.

But Long takes, minimal dialogue, very slow. The style could read as empty if you're not attuned to it.

Moonlight2016

Both films understand that presence—the way a person takes up space in a room—matters more than what happens. Emotional states are captured through small gestures, glances, the quality of silence between people.

Barry Jenkins' three-act meditation on a Black man's life in Miami, shot in visual fragments and small conversations. Loneliness, desire, the way we perform ourselves for others. Handheld, intimate, almost musical in its pacing.

But Very spare on plot. Heavy on mood and longing. If you want narrative propulsion or clear answers, this will feel evasive.