Ji-seung Han's "A Day" tells a monstrously sad story, one that's probably reason enough for most moviegoers to dismiss it. Even those few souls who still go to the cinema for a good cry may turn in their hankies for good after this one. But the South Korean film earns every one of its many tears, thanks to spectacular performances and a script both poetically and psychologically sound. In many ways, this tale of a married couple's ill-fated attempts at having a baby is not a pleasant experience, but like life itself, the film draws strength from nobility in the face of overwhelming tragedy. Seize the ‘Day’
A noble tale about
"A Day"
the precious present
Screens at 4:30 p.m. Sunday
By Scott Vogel
Star-BulletinAppropriately enough, "A Day" begins with a brief flashback to the first special day Suk-Yoon and Jin-Won (Sung-jae Lee and So-young Ko) spent together. It is their wedding day, and we see the happy pair running through a shower of fireworks, mugging for the videographer and darting off to their honeymoon, a fleet of balloons in tow. The convivial atmosphere presages an abrupt transition to another day, this one a few years later, when the pain of childlessness leads Jin-Won to desperate measures, including lying to a business associate about having a 5-year-old daughter.
Initially, it appears that Suk-Yoon's low sperm count is the cause of their infertility, and the opening scenes show the frustration that comes with the couple's multiple attempts at pregnancy -- the initial elation that accompanies Jin-Won's missed period followed by the anger and feelings of failure when she finally gets it. Their fertility specialist has long since ceased to be optimistic, and Suk-Yoon especially believes they should abandon hopes for a biological child, and adopt instead.
Jin-Won will not even countenance this idea. In fact, when she becomes aware of her husband's plan -- on the road to the orphanage -- she dives out of the car and tearfully begs him to try infertility treatments one last time. Suk-Yoon agrees and, to the surprise of everyone, they become pregnant at last. It is a moment of joy and exuberance that Lee and Ko play perfectly.
Part of the pleasure of "A Day" is its perfect limning of the day-to-day trials faced by an infertile couple: the thermometers and ovulation charts, the scheduling of intercourse, the inevitable strain, the tender moments of mutual consolation. Min-hee Park's script somehow manages to play every emotional chord in this mordant symphony without ever once slipping into bathos, a feat that becomes even more impressive in the film's sad second half.
After a few months of relative bliss, Suk-Yoon is called in by the couple's doctor for a consultation, during which he learns the news that the baby Jin-Won is carrying is anencephalic -- it doesn't have a brain. Such babies, he is told, normally die within a few hours of birth; therefore, most couples abort them. Humanitarian couples, he is told, donate their child's organs to other needy children.
There are few more heartbreaking moments in recent cinema history than those in which Suk-Yoon agonizes over telling his wife what he's learned while simultaneously watching her preparing their baby's nursery. It's just the start of this couple's long, long process of letting their child go, a farewell that is painful, horrifying and finally deeply touching. This is a baby whom they've already named, whom they already know, however obliquely. And it's also a baby who could potentially live for only -- yes -- a day, and so they must decide how much a day with their child would mean, and how that day might be spent.
These are not merely questions for the principals of "A Day," of course. There's hardly a parent alive who hasn't wondered about the very same things that Suk-Yoon and Jin-Won wonder about, and it's this universality that finally lifts the film past the TV-movie mawkishness into which it might have sunk. Who, after all, hasn't asked themselves what a day is worth?
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