The life of Lee Young-nam, a smart police man, who is transferred to a small village, has been turned upside down, when he falls for a beautiful girl and saves her from her abusive father.
A Girl at My Door is not revolutionary or radical cinema, but it gestures towards new and bold representations of kinship and community that are sorely missing in society.
[Here,] the city slicker is a taciturn lesbian police chief with a scandalous past, a passionate dislike of bullies and a penchant for lonely late-night drinking sessions. She's played, with mesmeric stillness, by rising star Doona Bae.
While Jung's efforts to avoid sensationalism and employ multiple threads are very admirable, the result is a mild-mannered piece short of a sufficiently substantial exposition of its plethora of characters and the problem they face.
Though the plotting is by turns too opaque and then ultimately too convoluted to be entirely satisfying as a drama, Bae and Kim are consistently compelling as oppressed characters who find a strange kinship in an intolerant society.
The pic is ultimately held together by the mesmerizing presence of Bae Doo-na in the title role and an equally bracing performance by teen thesp Kim Sae-ron.
