It’s become something of a meme, often accompanying a screenshot of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the screen in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, whenever a character in a film says its title. It’s a bit of teasing irony, where the film winks at its audience, acknowledging what its characters may not: their lives are part of a larger thematic throughline beyond their control.
No Other Choice participates in that device, albeit amidst darker circumstances. The device comes into play after Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) is laid off from his management position at Solar Paper, a paper production conglomerate, after 25 years of service. His comfortable lifestyle with his wife, Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), his stepson, Si-One, and his daughter, Ri-One, is upended, forcing them to prepare to downsize everything, including their home. Horrified by the idea of losing all that he had built, Yoo sets out on a desperate plan to pursue a highly coveted job at Moon Paper. Unfortunately for him, several other candidates are gunning for the job. After thirteen months of unsuccessful interviews and unfulfilling odd jobs, Yoo can’t afford to lose out to slightly more qualified and slightly less desperate men. So, he plots to eliminate them, one by one.
In other words, he has no other choice. In truth, he does have several other choices. However, one of the great hat tricks of late-stage capitalism is convincing us that those other choices are untenable and that the morally reprehensible is acceptable to gain and, most importantly, retain their economic position. Director Park Chan-wook toys with this reality by emphasizing the cosmic, comedic humiliations Yoo endures during his period of unemployment. Immediately after being laid off (which is humiliating in and of itself, as the eel he receives at the start of the film is part of his severance package), Yoo attends a self-help seminar, where he repeats job-seeking affirmations. When those inevitably fail, the indignities get progressively worse, ending up with him on the floor outside a bathroom, begging for a job.
Chan-wook pitches up the humor with sledgehammer force as he shifts into Yoo’s murderous plots. The film’s comedic centerpiece, and one of the year’s funniest scenes, has Yoo holding a gun on his first target, Goo Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min), while he’s sleeping. It’s meant to be a clean murder, but things quickly go haywire when Goo wakes up drunk to see Yoo standing over him. To make matters worse for them (and better for us), Lee (Yeom Hye-ran), Goo’s wife, walks in on them. The three people end up in a slapstick masterpiece, where they all struggle against each other for control of the gun and, on a deeper level, their futures. It’s frenetic, vicious, and riotously entertaining, all within the intertwined atmosphere of desperation and financial stability.
Chan-wook builds that atmosphere with playful shifts in perspective and discombulating transitions. He particularly enjoys using video, whether via social media or FaceTime, to hint at the surrealism shaping Yoo’s life. It’s as if our tools of social connection are actively trying to drive him insane, making his actions indefensible, but at least understandable as some form of nervous breakdown. The film’s sillier scenes function in the same way. Watching Yoo and Choi (Park Hee-soon) getting increasingly drunk, the camera spinning around them, plays like a wild, captivating fever dream. But it isn’t, and Yoo dispatches him with the same bumbling approach, albeit with more confidence now that he has more violent notches on his belt. The knowledge that Yoo’s desperation is understandable but also indefensible adds a sobering beat to the hilarity of the experience.
Also sobering is how Yoo’s actions impact his family. That insight comes from Lee, who begins to piece together that something isn’t quite right with her husband’s behavior. Her suspicions are complicated by their past, specifically his struggles with alcohol addiction. However, she knows enough to suspect that Yoo might be involved in the recent murders in their city. That places Lee in a psychological crisis of her own: does she write off her husband’s criminality to the consequences of losing his job and stand by him? Or does she hold him accountable in some way, especially when that criminality can disrupt or even destroy their family? It’s another scenario that shows how the take-no-prisoners attitude of capitalism goes far beyond an office building. It also demonstrates how pervasive the concept of “no other choice” can be.
Lee Byung-hun and Son Ye-jin do brilliant work in bringing those psychological struggles to life. Byung-hun is fearless, matching Chan-wook’s go-for-broke challenge. He embraces the script’s slapstick nature, figuratively and literally digging in the muck to show us how badly Yoo needs any kind of win, even at the expense of his dignity and soul. Byung-hun gets weird without losing his elegant aura; if nothing, the weirdness enhances it. Ye-jin isn’t afforded the same opportunity by nature of her role, but she is captivating in her own right. Her perceptiveness is her strength, as is the shuddering conflict that she conveys alongside it. Her and Byung-hun’s fantastic chemistry makes it easy to see why they go to such extremes.
No Other Choice ends with Yoo getting the job that he committed the indefensible to secure, only to find that his efforts may be for a lost cause. It is another spoke on the wheel of Chan-wook’s incisive satire, where the concept of choice, either an abundance or a lack of them, is beside the point under the specter of capitalism. It is a reality that can make many of us point at the screen in recognition.
No Other Choice is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of NEON. The film will expand nationwide in January.
It is another spoke on the wheel of Chan-wook’s incisive satire, where the concept of choice, either an abundance or a lack of them, is beside the point under the specter of capitalism. It is a reality that can make many of us point at the screen in recognition.
A late-stage millennial lover of most things related to pop culture. Becomes irrationally irritated by Oscar predictions that don’t come true.
