Reviews of Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice: Steely and fluid
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice received a six-to-eight-minute ovation at the Venice Film Festival and currently holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film, in development for twenty years, is Park’s first to screen at Venice in two decades. On Metacritic, it has scored 86% based on six reviews.
The story follows Bruno, a paper company manager who enjoys his work but takes his dismissal in stride. Two years of fruitless job hunting gradually erode his optimism into despair, forcing his wife Marlene to take a second job. Bruno then decides to identify and murder his rival in order to become the only candidate eligible for a position. The cast includes Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game) and Son Ye-jin (Crash Landing on You).
Variety reported that the 2-hour-and-19-minute screening concluded around midnight, with the cast and crew sent off by shouts of “Bravo!” Park last appeared in Venice in 2005 with Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.
Critics have largely praised the film, publishing glowing reviews. The Telegraph awarded it four out of five stars, writing: “At once tense, absurd, despairing, and irrational: rarely have so many conflicting tones been made to work in a single film.”
The Playlist noted: “Park masterfully blends genres, moving deftly between outright satire and sturdy thriller while keeping the humanity of his characters intact.”
A Guardian critic also gave the film four stars, writing: “Park Chan-wook’s new film carries his steely, fluid confidence and a kind of storytelling force that can accommodate all sorts of digressions, set pieces, and moments of trance-like surrender to mysterious inspirations.”
Variety added: “As the chaos descends, Park’s filmmaking grows more precise, as he finds exhilarating new ways to use the predetermined traits of landscapes and architecture.”
IndieWire called the film a rare cinematic work that empathizes with its protagonist without condoning his actions: “Countless films have been made about people who try to change themselves in the face of crisis. Far fewer exist about those who angrily refuse to entertain such a notion—those who would rather kill someone else than become someone else. Park Chan-wook’s bleak, brilliant, and brutally funny film is the exception that proves the rule.”
