Critics reviews

Swiveling from past to present and back again, the writer and director, Lee Su-jin, drops ominous clues — a bruised boy; a mysterious infection — that only slowly coalesce into a larger tragedy. Timelines blur, but the mood is sure as Mr. Lee surrounds his heroine with flares of mob rage and the casual misogyny of video gamers ("Kill the bitch with the big breasts!") that serve as context for Gong-ju's flinching, withdrawn behavior.

Lee's formal finesse allows him to use a myriad of techniques that connect us to Gong-ju's perspective, such as the sharp sensory triggers that propel us from present to the past, and the way he lets some subjects drop out of the shallow focus which instead rests on the background.

Engrossing, worthy, but completely familiar social drama that begins with the eponymous traumatized teenage girl being transferred to a new high school after an undisclosed incident. Said incident is gradually revealed in fragmentary flashbacks, as the events of the recent past begin to catch up to the protagonist. You can guess the rest.

The Étoile d'Or grand prize would eventually go to a South Korean film, first-time writer/ director Lee Su-jin's Han Gong-ju, which has a strong performance by teenaged Chun Woo-hee in the title role, though is hobbled by the shopworn narrative hook around which it's structured, the slow reveal of the past trauma that haunts the character, a device drawn out like some queasy striptease.