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Each week, Drew creates a watchlist with film recommendations provided by you.

A spoiler-free description of the movie.

A man gets fired and decides to eliminate his competition for a new job.

→ Park Chan-wook. The writer-director has an impressive filmography — one I haven’t yet entirely made my way through (including Oldboy, which is one of those movies people hear I haven’t seen and say “okay then you don’t really like movies now do you?”).

→ Timely satire. No Other Choice is one of the sharpest satires I’ve seen in years to take on heady themes including capitalism, male fragility, and automation in the workplace.

→ Holy-shit-how-did-they-do-that camerawork. I think the answer in a few cases is just: drones. The point here is that, in the film is truly masterful cinematography and editing and composite work that caused this writer’s jaw to fall to the floor more than once.

Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice is a razor-sharp satire constructed around a culturally-pervasive male archetype: the fragile man who defines himself through his work.

The cast, helmed by Lee Byung-hun (yes, from Squid Game) and Son Ye-jin, turn in hysterical, surprisingly physical performances. And though there’s much to appreciate about the editing and nifty camera work in the film as well, it never feels flashy or unnecessary.

One might argue it all shines the brightest when the famed director is done setting the table and the dominoes start to fall, because Park Chan-wook does take his time working his way up to that point.

I submit that the work doesn’t truly set until you start discussing it with your friends. Because it’s at this moment when you hear the varying perspectives and takeaways and interpretations of your friends, that you’ll realize just how delicately layered the writing, craft, and performances really needed to be in order to deliver on such venomous, confounding themes.

A fact or two about the production that makes you say “oh, neat.”

Thoughts completely unrelated to this week’s film.

BOTTLE EPISODE #1.

Everyone went around the room and said their name and occupation and one word to describe themselves because this is what they were told to do.

The first person’s word was “creative”, and so the room was overwhelmed by a white noise of ferociously scribbling pens. No doubt the sound of people crossing out their planned words as they thought that no person truly creative would take someone else’s word for themselves.

The second person’s word was “compassionate”, and up from their seats were a few people pretending to need a bathroom break. But really they were planning to think up new words to use as they thought that no person truly compassionate would steal someone else’s word without permission.

The exercise continued for somewhere over a half an hour until it was the last person’s turn to share their word.

The last person (number 47) looked around the room and breathed a sigh before saying “I’m hungry”. The crowd roared with ooohs and ahhhs like a studio audience, and then fell silent with envy as they thought about the way using the word “hungry” would be perceived by leadership. It was a word that represented a desire for more growth and opportunity and a larger workload, and this was the best word submission of the bunch if you ask any of Number 47’s colleagues. Though, Number 47 wouldn’t know it, because he’d already left the room to get some food.

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