Possible Love Review: Exquisitely Detailed Meta-Drama Is Endless Food For Thought

Featuring a fierce contender for best acting ensemble of the year, Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love is a film you won't stop thinking about.

Published Oct 13, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT

Alex is the Senior Editor of Reviews & Prestige Content, overseeing ScreenRant's film reviews as one of its Rotten Tomatoes-approved critics. After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in English, he spent a locked-down year in Scotland completing a Master's in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh, which he hears is a nice, lively city. He now lives in and works from Milan, Italy, conveniently a short train ride from the Venice Film Festival, which he first covered for SR in 2024.

If you've ever been uncertain what it means when a film is described as "novelistic," Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love is a perfect example. The Korean filmmaker's first feature since 2018's Burning is a slow, steady roll that wears its length, with a story that services the development of its characters and characters that service the development of ideas. With each step forward, the movie's themes get richer and more dense; you may not even realize how tangled it's all become until the final act, when the knot is finally untied.

Like a good book, it plants seeds that blossom in the mind after it's over; you can spend a long time thinking about this movie before you ever risk coming up empty. And, despite the density, you'll find Lee's left plenty of room for us to make our own interpretations. As was my experience, you may find yourself desperate to talk through what you've just seen, only to discover you've come away with a completely different reading than the person next to you.

Some might knock a movie for registering as another artform, rather than leaning into the things that are specific and unique to cinema. But, truthfully, films that feel like Possible Love does are rare, and exciting. They take masterful execution and are uniquely rewarding watches. The quartet of stunning central performances are in the running for best ensemble of the year. If you have the chance to see this during its limited US theatrical run, take it – the sustained focus of that environment is the best way to get the most out of this viewing experience.

Possible Love Builds Out Its Characters With Impressive Intricacy

Possible Love is a story of two couples from different social strata who become intertwined in increasingly complicated, messy ways, but the tricky bonds between them seem to contain all the problems of the modern world. When they first meet, it's under difficult circumstances: Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) and Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), along with their young son, are driving to a funeral. Ho-seok is a former employee of SP Heavy Industries, having lost his job two years ago, along with several others, after, as we gradually learn, a strike took a bad turn for the workers. The funeral is for a former colleague who has committed suicide.

While there, they meet Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), who is filming a documentary about the fired SP workers. She captures an awkward interaction between the couple and hopes to make them key interview subjects; Ho-seok, sullen and withdrawn, has no interest in being involved, but Mi-ok accepts. She seems fascinated by this whole thing, and eager for an opportunity to tell her story. Ye-ji, hoping to convince Ho-seok to open up, involves her husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung) and encourages them all to become closer. As time passes, however, it's clear she's not the master manipulator she believes herself to be, and that Mi-ok may have reasons of her own to embrace this situation.

...with each filmmaking choice, each new detail, it feels like the image is getting sharper and sharper.

Capturing everything that Possible Love layers into the interactions between these characters is virtually impossible. Lee treats the relationship between Mi-ok and Ye-ji as a gemstone, occasionally turning it slightly to let a different facet catch the light. Class is the great, looming specter between them, but it's not quite as simple as the haves and have-nots. Ye-ji's husband comes from, and has, serious money. She doesn't see herself as having enjoyed a privileged upbringing, certainly by comparison, and she tells her story like she's someone who 'got out' by snapping up the most eligible bachelor. As such, she likes to wear her wealth, something that puts her immediately at odds with the subject she's exploring. But she's also unable to see how clear it is to someone like Mi-ok that, regardless of how she sees herself, she started partway up the ladder.

Every aspect of the film seems to reflect this dynamic. Cho Yeo-jeong and Jeon Do-yeon do an incredible job bringing it to life with subtle touches in their performances, but they're supported by the costuming and set design, the nuanced script, and camerawork and editing that cue us into how these two are perceiving the other – and, in Mi-ok's case especially, how aware they are of how they're being perceived. In Possible Love, scenes progress into scenes without much overt drama; for most of the runtime, it's not even clear whether the story is building to something specific. But with each filmmaking choice, each new detail, it feels like the image is getting sharper and sharper. When you realize this is just one of the dynamics at play, and between just two of the four characters, you understand just how intricate this film gets.

Possible Love's Excellent Performances Build To A Striking Ending

Eventually, it becomes clear that the two biggest tracks of this narrative are on a collision course. The relationship between Mi-ok and Ye-ji, and who is manipulating whom and why, is one. Ho-seok's inner struggle is the other. Unlike many of his former colleagues, he has been completely unable to confront the trauma of his experience, and as a result, he has essentially shut down as a human being. For much of Possible Love, Sul Kyung-gu's performance is giving us next to nothing. But Ye-ji is convinced there is something profoundly sad hiding behind those snuffed-out eyes, and has made him her white whale. As the two women dance around each other, it becomes clear that Lee's movie is building to a cracking open of Ho-seok's shell.

In this sense, Possible Love is a film that takes the idea of "haves and have-nots" as something to unpack. What do these two couples have, and what do they not have? Surrounding this question are meditations on related themes through the filming of Ye-ji's fictional documentary, which, despite it almost certainly being a form of emotional tourism on her part, is capturing something real about the dignity of working-class life, and the pain of having it unjustly stolen. Each deepens the other; Lee makes some larger social commentary without needing to make his characters purely representative, and he tells an engaging human drama without having to get so specific that they lose their wider salience.

All the careful building comes to a head in the final third or so, when the film shifts locations and places the two couples' tensions under a microscope. The string of scenes that follow, aside from being riveting, are true showcases for this ensemble of actors, finally laying bare the full scope of their performances. The way Possible Love's ending ignites the ideas that have been percolating for its sizable runtime will leave them smoldering in the back of your mind for a long time to come – a surefire sign your time was very well spent.

Possible Love releases in limited US theaters on October 23, and will be available to stream on Netflix from November 6.