The Host (2006)

The Host surprised me. About fifteen minutes in, I was beginning to write the film off : the characters seemed buffoonish, stereotypical, and a bit like they'd wandered out of a sit-com. Perhaps this was considered side splitting to some, but my patience was starting to wear thin. If I was supposed to relate to this hulking idiot and his subservient father as they worked their snack bar alongside the Han River, it was becoming increasingly clear that I wouldn't. Enter the idiot's perfect little daughter (of course she's perfect!) and I let out a sigh of loss--my loss of time having watched the film this far, loss at the money I'd spent to see it.

Then as the idiot takes some cooked shrimp to a customer sitting on the lawn near the river (because the idiot had eaten one of the customer's previous shrimp legs, and the father had to make it up to the customer, this lesson passing the idiot son by), someone sees something hanging off a nearby bridge.

Then things go very, very horribly wrong. And suddenly all that pretence of goofiness that went before was revealed as the misdirection that it was. I sat up straighter on the couch. Here we go, I smiled.

Like Cloverfield, The Host is a monster movie that focuses on how this would affect 'normal' people, instead of the usual approach of barking generals and worried scientists. As the dysfunctional family (the idiot, the father, another alcoholic son and a slightly self destructive daughter)try to regain what they've lost, the film kept surprising me with unexpected moments of heartbreaking sadness. Of scenes where the simplest mistake can carry such horrendous consequences. And of how in any disaster, the moments of true heroism are the ones no one sees.

Even now, three days on, certain scenes keep replaying in my head. I can now see why this film made so many top ten lists, both in North America and abroad. I just pray that no one tries to remake it for American audiences...or did J.J. Abrams already do that?

*****(5 out of 5)