[HanCinema's Film Review] "How to Live in This World"

Yeong-wook (played by Kim In-kwon) is a banker and his wife Yeon-kyeong (played by Lee Na-ra) is an art gallery manager. At present they've been busy in their professional lives, and so have negotiated regular sex nights every two weeks they don't seem to be enjoying that much. The passion is gone from their relationship, though the two still love each other. Also, they're both surprisingly hot forty-year olds, leading to some brief flirtations with adultery.

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"How to Live in This World" is a borderline erotic film. There's not that much full frontal nudity, but let's just say this isn't the kind of movie you should be watching in a public place. Despite that titillation, "How to Live in This World" most closely reminded me of "Her Husband and His Wife" of all ridiculous things. That movie, which was produced by a church, contained no nudity but was a fairly passionate and down-to-earth explication of how marriages lose energy and require interventions.

On the surface level, writer/director Sin Yang-joong appears to be making the rather ridiculous statement in "How to Live in This World" that adultery can actually improve a marriage by reigniting a couple's ailling sex drive. But it's not that simple. Yeong-wook and Yeon-kyeong both grapple with guilt over their extramarital behavior, whether it's physical or emotional. Their reasoning is more mundane than dramatic. It just doesn't feel right being sexual with someone they don't care about as a life partner.

"How to Live in This World" is also notable for not being particularly judgmental about anyone. The second leads Min-sik (played by Seo Tae-hwa) and Jae-hoon (played by Lee Seo-yi) tempt the leads not because they're evil, but because their own personal lifestyles prioritize low commitment sex over the marital kind. This doesn't make either of them bad people. But their differing priorities force the leads to ask what they really want out of sex.

For Yeong-wook, the answer to that is that he wants to be Yeon-kyeong's husband. For Yeon-kyeong, the answer is that she wants to be Yeong-wook's wife. While these might sound like tautologies, the emphasis here is on how being married isn't just a one time decision. Emotionally it's something you have to do every day. A spouse has to constantly reaffirm that they want to be with their partner. Losing sight of that is how a person gets tempted into adultery.

Setting aside time for sex every couple of weeks was an attempt to set those beliefs into real life motion for Yeong-wook and Yeon-kyeong, as they found themselves in a rut. But as it happens making a spontaneous effort to be passionate was what they really needed, and likewise, they needed the adultery to remember what it was like to feel that spontaneity. As a love letter to the abstract concept of marriage, "How to Live in This World" is a surprisingly sweet inversion of cucking dynamics, a fantasy for the middle aged about how the best sex is with someone who really gets you just from sheer experience.

Review by William Schwartz

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"How to Live in This World" is directed by Sin Yang-joong, and features Kim In-kwon, Lee Na-ra, Seo Tae-hwa, Lee Seo-yi, Lee Ja-eun, Park Soo-in. Release date in Korea: 2019/12/04.