Title: Let Me Out
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Publisher: Seoul Institude of the Arts and Baekdu-Daegan
Director: Kim Chang-rae, Jae Soh
Producer: Jae Soh, Irene Cho, Min Soh
Script: Kim Chang-rae, Jae Soh
Original Release Date: May 27, 2014
Title: Let Me OutI liked Let Me Out quite a bit. Though it isn’t the most exciting or necessarily complex movie out there, it has a lot of heart to it. The story of how hard it actually is to follow your dreams is one we can all relate to in a way, and the movie does a good job of portraying Mu-young’s struggles in making his come true in a way that isn’t overly sappy or dramatic. Clocking in at just over an hour and a half, Let Me Out is more than worth the watch.
The basic story is that Mu-young (Kwon Hyun-sang), a senior film student who has only done “film making with his mouth”, is given $5,000 by the up-and-coming indie director Yang Ik-june to finally commit to making a movie and literally put his money where his mouth is. After scraping together a last minute and less than ideal crew, Mu-young begins filming his zombie melodrama, Let Me Out. As he struggles to complete the movie, he discovers, that creating the movie he wants, for all his famous one-liners and extensive movie knowledge, is much harder than he originally thought it’d be. In the end, though, despite conflicts with the crew and cast, not to mention a healthy dose of self doubt and frustration, he eventually finishes it, coming out of the experience a bit wiser, a bit humbler, and a bit more sure of himself and his dream.
The main thing I appreciated when it came to the story is that it didn’t spend a lot of time dilly dallying. We didn’t have to sit through the majority of the shoots, eliminating a lot of the tedium and subsequent boredom that would have come from having to sit though the same drama and conflicts over and over again. It also emphasized how Let Me Out isn’t just about making a movie, but more what one learns from the process. That said, the majority of the heart that makes Let Me Out such a good movie stems almost completely from the endearing side cast and the the gradual development of Mu-young. The thing I liked best about Mu-young is that he doesn’t go through a magical dramatic change halfway through the movie in which he finally becomes a nice guy who realizes that he was an a-hole and has learned the error of his ways. Rather, he comes to the slow realization that he needs those around him to make his dreams succeed.
At the same time, he also comes to have more confidence in making his own dreams come true. He makes movies in his head because he’s afraid that their actual execution won’t be up to snuff and making a work that he isn’t proud of, or that he feels doesn’t measure up to those he idolizes, would be an unbelievable failure. In a way his feelings are ones that I think we all go through when it comes to our dreams. We’re all secretly afraid of disappointing ourselves, that the dream we’re working so hard toward will be ruined because we aren’t good enough. Mu-young is just like the rest of us, trying to make his dream come true, one hard step at a time, making him all the more of a sympathetic and, more importantly, relatable character.
The side cast is a pretty endearing bunch. Though they’re more instantly likeable from the start, they also don’t go through a great deal of growth. That said, I think the performances given were pretty great, especially in terms of Ah-young (Park Hee-bon) and Yong-woon (Han Geun-sup). The side characters often provide much of the comedy that balances out some of the film’s more angsty scenes. A small handful of the cast and crew became especially notable in how they stuck with Mu-young through all his crap. Even at the end, when Mu-young has been abandoned by a good number of those whom he started out with, they stick with him, even if Mu-young had to suck up his pride for a moment and apologize to a couple people. Heck, part of the reason Mu-young decides to go through with finishing his film after saying he’s going to quit for the umpteenth time, is because he saw how much his crew believed in him and his movie and how much they sacrificed and put up with off camera to make it happen.
In terms of visuals, I’m a pretty terribly judge when it comes to live action because I usually can’t tell whether anything special or noteworthy is going on. Keeping that in mind, I liked how Let Me Out looked overall. I was especially fond of the the penciled rotoscoping and the storyboarding at the beginning and end; it was a neat, interesting decision to make and added a little something extra to the film. On a bit of a side note, if you end up buying the movie, I’d recommend checking out the making of featurette. It’s not very long, but it hearing about how the movie came to be was pretty interesting and definitely gives you a bit more appreciation for the film.
For all my praise, Let Me Out isn’t a perfect film. Mu-young is a bit insufferable at the start and some scenes felt somewhat pointless in the grand scheme of things. But, Let Me Out is wonderfully enjoyable, and I wholly recommend it to anyone looking for a good low-key drama to watch.
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AnimeEmily
I'm a shy, lazy, easily impressed person who loves anime and manga. I've been seriously watching since about the summer of the sixth grade and have been in love since. I'm pretty much an amateur when it comes to anime and am somewhat still in that starry-eyed phase, but as I continue to watch more, I have become more critical, I suppose one could say.
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