I’m absolutely elated to be writing this review, because last year we headed into awards season with a complete and total dearth of international features with audio description, especially those trying to qualify for the Oscars and earn as many nominations as possible. Well, possibilities are endless, and Netflix has surprised me by giving its festival darling Possible Love English audio description here in the United States, which came along with my screener because Netflix is awesome. Thanks, Netflix. When you show up, you absolutely do show up. I’m proud to report that Possible Love has audio description produced by Descriptive Video Works, meaning blind and low vision audiences can enjoy what may very well become one of the five International Feature nominees at this year’s Oscars. Possible Love has already gained considerable attention, winning the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival and continuing its awards trajectory with three Gotham nominations. Director Lee Chang-dong, whose previous film was Burning, has returned with another dense, provocative drama, and Netflix has also made an effort to introduce audiences to his earlier work. I’m not sure how much of that work has audio description, although it would be wonderful if more of it did. This marks my first truly meaningful foray into international cinema this year with a film that is not primarily in English and actually has audio description. Unlike Focus Features’ Hotspot, which technically qualifies as an international film despite being spoken in English, Possible Love represents exactly the kind of accessibility breakthrough I’ve been hoping to see.

Possible Love follows two couples who would never cross paths under normal circumstances, separated by class, wealth, education, and social standing. The haves and the have-nots. It’s an upstairs, downstairs kind of premise, centered on a documentary filmmaker named Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), who is interested in exploring the lives of unemployed workers who have lost their jobs and are struggling to process the emotional consequences. Ye-ji begins by speaking with Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), the wife of one of these workers, and the two women develop an unusual dynamic that eventually blossoms into something resembling a friendship. Mi-ok’s husband, Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu), is a welder who was laid off following a labor dispute, and together they are raising their son, Cheol, while trying to make ends meet. They are decidedly working class, but there’s a warmth and optimism within their household that becomes increasingly important as the film progresses. Meanwhile, Ye-ji has a husband of her own, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), a wealthy businessman who seems to have embraced many of the excesses of American culture. She even mentions meeting him while studying in the United States. Ironically, he seems like exactly the sort of person who might be responsible for firing the very workers his wife is now interested in documenting. As these two families become increasingly intertwined, the film asks whether this friendship is genuinely built on empathy or whether Ye-ji is engaging in a kind of exploitative voyeurism, using her privileged position to performatively represent a class whose struggles she will never fully understand, and whose circumstances may have been created by people just like her husband.

What Possible Love does so well is resist the temptation to turn these differences into a series of explosive arguments and confrontations. Instead, it explores the possibility that people separated by wildly different life experiences, wealth, education, and social structures can somehow come together and share conversations, dinners, and experiences. But how long can that really last? Will their differences ultimately become too much? Are they stepping too far outside their respective comfort zones? And who actually benefits from this friendship? Is there something meaningful to be gained on either side, or will everyone ultimately lose something, even if it’s just a piece of themselves, in the process? I would describe Possible Love as a meditative drama, one that is remarkably dense in terms of the provocative ideas it presents about social structure, the privilege of wealth, and what that privilege actually means to those who possess it versus those who do not. There’s an interesting dynamic between the two women, particularly because Mi-ok remains perpetually optimistic despite her circumstances. It’s the old adage about making the most of what you have, and she seems determined to do exactly that, even with Ho-seok unemployed and her own work helping to keep the family afloat. What I especially appreciated was the absence of the kind of emasculation narrative that sometimes accompanies stories about men who are no longer the primary breadwinners in their households. Ho-seok’s struggles seem tied more to the loss of purpose than the loss of manhood, which is a distinction I appreciated.

There are several fascinating conversations throughout the film, including one in which Ye-ji is actively shooting footage of unemployed workers and someone suggests that perhaps she should dress down. Her clothing practically announces her affluence, and maybe showing up looking wealthy isn’t the most empathetic choice when you’re trying to document people who have lost their livelihoods. I also appreciated a conversation about how she’s financing her documentary. One character proudly points out that she’s doing it independently of her husband’s wealth, seeking grants rather than simply asking him to write a check. But then the question becomes whether that’s actually the appropriate thing to do. After all, she has the financial resources to make this documentary herself, while countless other filmmakers do not. By applying for grants, she’s potentially taking money away from artists who don’t have a wealthy spouse as a backup plan. On the other hand, if she uses Sang-woo’s money, she’s potentially financing a documentary about unemployed workers with money connected to the very kind of corporate wealth responsible for putting those workers out of jobs in the first place. It’s wonderfully cyclical, and the film doesn’t provide an easy answer about which choice is right or wrong. Instead, it takes this unusual situation and starts poking needles into it, allowing the audience to decide for themselves what the ethical solution might be when every available option comes with its own complications.

My ability to discuss the individual performances is somewhat muted because of how I experienced the film. The English audio description track also provides English-dubbed dialogue, meaning I’m not actually hearing the original Korean-language performances. I’m hearing the work of the English voice actors, who do a wonderful job conveying these characters and their emotions. But because I cannot read subtitles, this is essentially my only accessible way to experience the film. I can appreciate the script, the character development, the thematic material, and the general emotional trajectory, but I would be faking it if I started excessively praising the original actors for performances I haven’t actually heard. That’s an important distinction, especially when discussing international cinema and the limitations that come with accessibility. I can certainly understand why Jeon Do-yeon has attracted critical attention for her performance as Mi-ok, including a Gotham nomination for Outstanding Lead Performance. The women are given some of the film’s richest material, and their conversations are frequently more interesting than those involving the men. A talented actress would have quite a bit to work with here, and I can understand why critics have responded so enthusiastically. I just want to be transparent about the fact that my experience of those performances is filtered through the English-language adaptation rather than the original voices.

While I appreciate Possible Love for the questions it’s asking, part of me also found the film surprisingly simplistic in its presentation. Not necessarily in its ideas, which are often quite complicated, but in its execution. This is a quiet, meditative drama that doesn’t feel like the kind of bombastic awards contender that immediately demands everyone’s attention. The fact that it has managed to attract so much acclaim speaks to the strength of its direction, writing, and performances. It’s also not a story that feels exclusively Korean. You could transpose these characters and circumstances into any number of cultures and still explore essentially the same questions about class and privilege. The film opens by invoking the Tenth Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet,” which is particularly interesting given the premise. There’s an obvious intentionality behind examining how the other half lives, but I also think the film loses part of that concept along the way. There isn’t necessarily a suggestion that Ye-ji and Sang-woo covet the simpler existence of Mi-ok and Ho-seok or would willingly surrender their possessions for a less complicated life. Likewise, the working-class couple doesn’t seem especially consumed by envy of the wealthy. They’re largely happy with what they have, and the most immediate correction they need is for Ho-seok to find employment again. I think there was room to explore that idea of coveting more directly, to draw stronger connections between these two families and the commandment that supposedly informs the story.

I’ll also admit that I felt the runtime. That doesn’t inherently make a film bad or even necessarily slow, because pacing is subjective. Someone else could watch this 164-minute drama and feel that every minute was necessary. For me, though, I genuinely thought I had been watching it for three hours. That’s roughly sixteen additional minutes of perceived weight, and I think that says something about how the film occasionally struggles to maintain momentum. There’s also a surprising moment involving the documentary footage itself. Because the surrounding drama is so quiet and restrained, actually seeing some of the material Ye-ji has captured creates a stark contrast. The footage is considerably more disturbing than you might expect, given the tone of everything leading up to it. I found myself somewhat conflicted about that choice, although I can appreciate how it reinforces the disconnect between the comfortable conversations these characters are having and the more unsettling realities of the people being documented.

Ultimately, Possible Love is a character study about wealth, privilege, class, and social standing, told from the perspective of a South Korean filmmaker with an extraordinary amount of patience for allowing his characters to exist within their circumstances. The cast is relatively small, and the film focuses primarily on these four adults and Mi-ok and Ho-seok’s son. I’m grateful to Netflix for providing audio description, although accessibility doesn’t inherently guarantee a positive review. It certainly would have been awkward to celebrate my first major international film of the year with something I didn’t like, but fortunately, I genuinely appreciate the thematic material here. This is one of the better films I’ve seen this year, even if I don’t anticipate it cracking my top ten or top twenty-five. I also think there’s plenty of room for another international contender to surpass it, assuming those other films are actually made accessible. That’s the frustrating part. Whether Possible Love becomes my favorite international film of the year may depend less on the quality of its competition and more on corporate decisions about which films deserve audio description. It’s a strong enough contender that I would be comfortable supporting it in that category, but it doesn’t reach the heights of Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which was my favorite film of its respective year.

If you’re part of the blind and low vision community, please check out Possible Love when it arrives on Netflix. I don’t particularly care whether you think this is the kind of movie you would normally watch, because if we want more international cinema to be accessible, we need to demonstrate that there’s an audience for it. That doesn’t mean you have to like everything that comes your way, or pretend something is better than it actually is. But sometimes you have to take a swing on the few opportunities we’re given so that the people making these decisions understand there’s a demand for more. And frankly, you could do a lot worse. I’ve seen far worse movies this year. Possible Love is a thoughtful, well-crafted drama that asks difficult questions and provides broad enough answers for audiences to arrive at their own conclusions. Sometimes the best films are the ones that allow each viewer to walk away with an individual experience. Whether this ultimately becomes my favorite international film of the year remains to be seen, and unfortunately, much of that decision is entirely outside my control. But for now, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to experience it at all, and even more grateful that it turned out to be worth the experience.

Fresh: 8.1/10