In-flight Film Time: Intimate Strangers 완벽한 타인 (2018) Korean

Yu Hae Jin, Yum Jung Ah, Cho Jin Woong, Kim Ji Soo, Lee Seo  Jin, Song Ha Yoon, Yoon Kyung Ho

Movie rating: 8/10     Neck score: B

I had been meaning to watch this for a while. Not just because Epik High quoted it's poster for their recent concert series, or because it has Lee Seo Jin, one of my ahjussi loves, but because it has an all around stellar cast, and the premise was super intriguing and it promised to be completely messed up. So when I saw it as an option in my in-flight entertainment, I jumped right in.

It is about a group of best friends for 40 years and their spouses who decide to play a game at a dinner party where they have to reveal their hidden life on their phones. Essentially answering every call on speakerphone and reading every message and notification out loud. Naturally it was going to get messy and tear everyone's lives apart. Not only would cheating and lying be revealed, but true opinions about each other, and their deepest secrets they weren't ready to tell even their best of friends.

It was really well done too. The introduction to all the characters where you can tell that not everything is all right in their lives, but they are pretending to be happy, to the slow build from a fun gathering of friends to all hell breaking lose. The slow and steady build of tension was pretty great. It was natural and there were the ups and downs as they would (somewhat) successfully explain things away until something else came up and it would add up. Their tempers getting shorter, and their standards getting super messed up. It totally called out the double standards as the husbands would freak out thinking their wives were the ones cheating when they were the cheaters, or the wives freaking out over something that wasn't true, but to tell the truth would reveal another wound. It was delightfully messed up. It was definitely a plug at how much of our lives are on our phones and how much we hide. We could be intimately acquainted, but still be strangers. It was chilling and completely messed up, and I loved it.

But since this was an in-flight movie, I don't remember if they said it was edited at all. I did have to accept the viewer's advisory before it started. I think at most it could be rated higher because of all the sexual dialog. There are affairs, etc, but since it all takes place at a dinner party, you're not necessarily going to see anything (I don't think they cut out much, if anything). Anyway, it's apparently a remake of an Italian film Perfetti Sconosciuti that came out in 2016.