In “A Normal Family,” it’s easy to read that title as sarcasm. After all, what happens to the family – made up of two smaller families led by brothers Jae-wan (Sul Kyung-gu) and Jae-gyu (Jang Dong-gun) – at the center of Hur Jin-ho’s sharp, darkly funny new drama (based on the 2009 novel “The Dinner”) is anything but ordinary.
But, the petty grievances that dictate their actions? The lightly sneering high-mindedness with which certain members view themselves? That’s all too familiar.
In one early scene, Jae-wan (a lawyer) and Jae-gyu (a pediatrician) argue over Jae-wan’s decision to defend a man involved in a hit and run, where he killed another man and severely injured the man’s young daughter. The brothers’ relationship is already strained for many reasons – their ailing mother, their wives’ distaste for one another, the fact that, while they’re both wealthy, Jae-wan is clearly better off. But this decision by Jae-wan firmly gives Jae-gyu the moral high ground he’s been reaching for. Jae-gyu is the doctor treating the dead man’s injured daughter, and he is appalled that his brother would take on this particular client, unwilling to hear Jae-wan’s assertions about equal protection under the law, or that both of them – no matter which side they fall on – are simply doing their jobs.
“You’re doing it to make money,” Jae-gyu spits out at his brother. “I’m doing it to save people.”
As the events of the film unfold, it will become clear that as much as Jae-gyu feels himself of a higher moral caliber than his brother, that feeling masks deep-seeded resentments, over money in particular (he could give his soul over to the devil in the name of money, but he won’t). But when the two brothers’ children find themselves wrapped up in a horrible, violent crime, Jae-gyu learns that everyone has a line, and “A Normal Family” becomes an upper middle class parable about how thin the veneer of respectability and morality truly is.
One of the first things we see in “A Normal Family” is the car accident that drives a wedge between the brothers, an ugly, brutal encounter that unfolds in one, unflinching shot. The first time we meet Jae-gyu and Jae-wan’s kids – Hye-yoon (Hong Ye-ji) and Si-ho (Kim Jung-chul) – instead of doing their homework (like they promised their parents), they’re watching a video of the incident online – eyes wide, almost gleeful, glued to the screen.
You get the sense that these parents have no real idea what’s going on with their children – Hye-yoon, who’s pretty, high achieving, smart, but feels inordinately bored with all of those qualities; and Si-ho, who’s quiet, withdrawn, but with an undercurrent of anger coursing through his veins. As the plot unfolds, and particularly after the teenagers commit the crime that characterizes the second half of the movie, these two characters become far less interesting than their parental counterparts. They’re almost full-on psychos, actually, which feeds into the film’s dark humor, but doesn’t necessarily lend itself to complex character study.
The two sets of parents really form the crux of the film’s thematic interests, particularly when it comes to class, family, and how shaky our principles can be when confronted with reality. Before heading to dinner with Jae-wan and his wife Ji-su (a delightfully funny Claudia Kim, playing perhaps the most clear-eyed and moral character of the bunch), Jae-gyu’s wife Yeon-kyung (Kim Hee-ae) wonders if Ji-su will make her rice cakes again – she met Jae-wan when delivering rice cakes to his law firm.
Yeon-kyung disparages the fact that Ji-su used a different type of flour the last time she made them. “Rice cakes are rice cakes,” she says. “Trying to sound all fancy.” In response, Jae-gyu muses that Jae-wan has had a taste for rice cakes since he was a little kid, revealing the level of immaturity he believes his brother holds. Jae-gyu sees Jae-wan’s relative wealth as a moral failing of sorts – his large home, his immoral job, his new baby, his much younger wife. In their eyes, he is a bad man who made cunning choices in order to have a richer life. And, of course, they’re jealous.
But, in the end it doesn’t really come down to good and evil, but rather law and order. Jae-gyu is willing to break the rules if it means something good will come of it – the type of doctor who will proceed with surgery even if the bill isn’t paid yet. Jae-wan, on the other hand, believes in the law of things. A man might have run over another man on purpose, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve a lawyer.
The difference is Jae-gyu’s moral authority is a mask while Jae-wan’s belief in the law proves to be real. As much as he preaches the importance of doing the right thing, when the right thing involves his son, Jae-gyu’s virtuous fortitude disappears. He drives his child to the police station, and chickens out. To save face, he has scoots out of the hospital’s chapel on the floor, pulling himself underneath the pews so that the injured little girl’s mother won’t see him crying. In the face of something bad happening to his child – and in the face of a hit to his own upright reputation – he starts to crumble.
One of the last images we see in “A Normal Family” is a big family portrait, both families and the brothers’ mother smiling warmly at the camera. We’re left with this image of a perfect family, knowing that the perfect ideal is as thin as the piece of paper of the photograph, and just as easy to rip into pieces.
