Vegetarian
Vegetarian
| 18 February 2010 (USA)
Vegetarian Trailers

An ordinary housewife, Yeong-hye, who has nightmares every night, finally becomes a vegetarian, throwing away all the meats in her refrigerator. Her husband Kil-soo starts to complain about her actions. Her family also worries about her health. During a family lunch, Yeong-hye tries to kill herself due to her father's abrupt violence. Observing all the happenings, Yeong-hye's brother-in-law, Min-ho, a videoartist, hears from his wife that Yeong-hye has a Mongolian spot on her hips. Min-ho gets inspiration from this and starts to sketch.

Reviews
Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
whatejwj The Barrier that The Movie Never Can OvercomeIn the modern society, the movie became a monster. It eats almost every genre like cartoons, plays, and even operas. However there's a genre that movies can't defeat, the novel. It's because of the novel's description of thought. And the movie "Vegetarian" Also couldn't overcome its origin, the novel. The story is about some vegetarian who suffers trauma about her father's violence in her childhood. After a long time she started to have nightmare everyday and decided to be vegetarian because of the guilty that she feels in her dream. The novel has three chapters and each chapter's narrator describe her differently. But the movie embraces all chapters and mainly depicted by eye of brother in law. Even though the movie extraordinarily follows almost every single dialogue of its origin, it can't overcome the barrier of novel's description of thought. Now, let's talk about what the problems are.First, Movie failed to depict the thought of first chapter's narrator, her husband. He got married with her only because she is not attractive to him at all so he didn't feel to make any effort to get her. And he works for company that rate him highly even though he is incompetent and get paid a little money. Moreover, because he wanted to belong to the normal society too much, he hates her vegetarian diets and nightmare. so he had neglected her feeling and left her in the end. But, movie lose the chance to show these details, maybe director thought they weren't important. Though, hints of his character should have given us by his act. Why? Because he is one of main character. Of course it did, but it wasn't enough. For example, when he found her naked in the park at the almost beginning of the movie, he stopped for a while and slowly walked to her. He put clothes on her and then asked softly, "What are you doing here?". It seems normal, isn't it? It's possible that it seem not to have anything strange as you saw, even though, In the novel, we can easily read that he was really reluctant to walk to his wife and disgusted about her. But he go to her only because of his sense of responsibility. In addition to this, there're a lot of scenes that his behavior or talk is different from his real thought. But movie never show this well so we just can construe his behavior as normal one.Secondly, It's about her sister. In the novel, in the violence of their father, she cared him as firstborn. She have justified herself that she did it only because it's her responsibility but she knew that the behavior protected her from getting blow by him and that her little sister, untactful girl, got more hit. Through this experience, she grew up an adult having strong sense of responsibility. One day she heard her days are numbered from doctor, she started to think about her own life. And she realized her life haven't included herself. So, after she found the tumor was not malignant, she was in despair because she thought death is better than living to her. Instead of her, her husband and sister's affair made something burst. She made him to go jail and her sister go to hospital. And she cared her but she desperately hated her. However, everything is according to responsibility. So, in the movie, I'm sure that some of you say you've never seen her hatred about her little sister. She just cared little sister but if you listen to their talking carefully, she never listen to her actually. That's all. So the movie just make the vegetarian insane and the goal of novel goes somewhere out of earth. Lastly, It also lacks description of her brother in law. At this point, the movie just became a third-rate film or pornography. In the novel, he just got some inspiration when he heard from his wife that her vegetarian sister still has blue spot on her bottom. And he started to think of his new artwork and felt deep guilty about his blueprint, so he stopped his work for 3 years. However the movie doesn't depict it well enough. Because of lack of description of thought, it's really hard to figure out only by observing his behavior if he sees her as one of his muses or just with his lust. To sum up, unfortunately the movie can't eat up the novel yet. The novel was beautiful but the movie lost a lot of important details and became nothing but the third-rate film. So it failed to be a box office hit. Additionally, personally I want to advise that when making a film from a novel, directors shouldn't choose stories that include the characters hiding their thoughts or feelings because the movie have never defeated that barrier of inner description.