“Bong Joon-ho’s knives are unquestionably out for the prosperous and prepossessing family of one-percenters who become the unwitting dupes of a lower-class family’s cunning machinations in Parasite. But Cho Yeo-jeong triggers something other than disdain. As matriarch Yeon-gyo, the actress eliminates all irony and self-awareness from her performance, instead walking around in a lulling fog of blithe, dimwitted amiability, the personification of Bong’s idea that kindness is one of the only luxuries that the rich deign to share with those below them. Yeo-jeong is not playing a broad caricature of affluent vapidity but actual vapidity. Her character is a flibbertigibbet who has submerged any sense of an ego beneath the immediate concerns of home and family; there doesn’t seem to be an intimidating or interrogative bone in her body. Yeon-gyo’s inquiring, open-mouthed mien and artless, often idiotic inquiries in her scenes with the Kim family are never less than amusing, but they’re also unexpectedly pitiful because Yeo-jeong renders them with such peculiar wholeheartedness. By personating her character as someone fundamentally impaired by her social rank, the actress guarantees our critical sympathy, rather than our ridicule, and makes this class-conscious satire so much richer for recognizing the mortal insecurities of its well heeled targets.” — Matthew Eng
Memorable Moments from Great Performances of 2019
(Source: TribecaFilm.com)
