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 every other director, that’s not an issue; the truth is, that’s regular. However director Hong by no means stops making films. Normally, he has two movies on the NYFF lineup per yr or is already in the course of capturing a brand new movie when the competition is occurring. Fortunately, his subsequent movie begins manufacturing in November. However the concept of a niche this lengthy between Hong movies in some way 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 dad and mom’ 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 appeal. Hong’s framing choices haven’t modified a lot. Particularly, throughout meal-set scenes, retaining Junhee’s complete household throughout the similar body permits viewers to observe every character react to what’s being stated—an at all times rewarding (and sometimes hilarious) expertise. That being stated, Hong’s method feels completely different right here. The movie’s setting is extra expansive; characters change places extra usually 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 latest Hong fare.
What Does That Nature Say to You is considered one of 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 accomplice’s dad and mom—that drive to impress, woo, and (maybe extra merely) make certain 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 simple to check and jumble the completely different movies collectively. Whereas it’s powerful to check 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 normal. Possibly that’s okay; generally, a captivating 109-minute expertise on the cinema is greater than sufficient.
Creator score: 7/10