What Does That Nature Say to You [NYFF 2025]
Studio: Cinema Guild
Director: Hong Sang-soo
Oct 05, 2025
One thing’s off: Korean director Hong Sang-soo hasn’t made a film since What Does That Nature Say to You premiered at Berlinale in February. For another director, that’s not an issue; in reality, that’s regular. However director Hong by no means stops making films. Often, he has two movies on the NYFF lineup per yr or is already in the course of taking pictures a brand new movie when the competition is going on. Fortunately, his subsequent movie begins manufacturing in November. However the thought of a niche this lengthy between Hong movies someway makes the story and themes of What Does That Nature Say to You resonate all of the extra deeply.
In What Does That Nature Say to You, Hong performs into and subverts viewer expectations concurrently. The movie begins with Donghwa (Ha Seong-guk) dropping off Junhee (Kang So-yi), his girlfriend of three years, at her mother and father’ home. Impressed by the grandeur of her home (who wouldn’t be; there’s an entire personal mountain behind it), Donghwa meets Junhee’s father (Kwon Hae-hyo) for the primary time. Donghwa’s invited into the home, and thus begins the standard Hong day: chatting over walks, drunk yelling over dinners, and exemplifying the complexity of human relationships.
Stylistically, the early-2000s visible really feel of the movie is harking back to Hong’s different works; its low-budget aesthetic provides to its allure. Hong’s framing selections haven’t modified a lot. Particularly, throughout meal-set scenes, holding Junhee’s whole household throughout the similar body permits viewers to look at every character react to what’s being mentioned—an all the time rewarding (and infrequently hilarious) expertise. That being mentioned, Hong’s strategy feels completely different right here. The movie’s setting is extra expansive; characters change places extra typically than they often do within the director’s movies. When characters separate, the director even cross-cuts between a number of conversations. These small quirks give the movie levity and assist it stand out from current Hong fare.
What Does That Nature Say to You is one among Hong’s funniest and most playful movies in years. It’s exhausting to not relate to the narrative’s tight focus. So many perceive the preliminary awkwardness of assembly your companion’s mother and father—that drive to impress, woo, and (maybe extra merely) ensure they such as you. Inside this script, passing feedback are extra biting; you watch because the issues characters say affect Donghwa’s anxieties about even being on this state of affairs within the first place. It doesn’t assist that he’s a 35-year-old aspiring poet (and his poetry isn’t even that good—one thing characters touch upon within the movie); the jokes nearly write themselves.
When a director releases this many movies in such quick succession, it’s straightforward to match and jumble the completely different movies collectively. Whereas it’s robust to match Hong movies (most of that are nice), What Does That Nature Say to You feels extra grounded and smaller in scale than his extra artist-centered works (take The Novelist’s Movie from 2022) or his extra existential tales (say, 2021’s In Entrance of Your Face, his finest movie in years). Whereas that makes the precise filmgoing expertise dynamic, rewarding, and by no means boring (it’s pretty to see this with a laughing crowd), you’re left with rather less to remove than traditional. Perhaps that’s okay; generally, an enthralling 109-minute expertise on the cinema is greater than sufficient.
Creator score: 7/10