Possible Love

Lee Chang-dong returns to Venice at last, after winning the festival’s Silver Lion for Best Director in 2002 with bittersweet romance Oasis. In his latest feat, the Netflix-produced Possible Love, the South Korean auteur tells the story of a working-class family (Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu) who catch the eye of filmmaker Ye-ji (Parasite‘s Cho Yeo-jeong). Setting out to shoot a documentary on the disappearing workforce, she focuses on a company that has undergone mass layoffs and a violent crackdown on its workers’ strike. In the process of gathering interviews, the documentarian and her husband start a timid friendship with his subjects, but one that squarely rests on unequal footing.

Zo In-sung, who also stars in Cannes sensation Hope, completes the quartet. Entirely unapologetic about his economic standing, he will casually slip away to speak to American investors in impeccable English. These phone calls carry with them an implication that appears to remain unnoticed by the characters, but gains retrospective significance for the viewers. Lee Chang-dong has a keen sense of rhythm in his quiet narration, carefully controlling when and how certain information is revealed.

The feature’s almost three-hour-long runtime barely registers as the delicate circumstances at its heart unfold organically. Mi-ok, full of unwavering optimism despite her husband’s depression, opens her heart piece by piece to the director, who always pushes the camera between them like a protective shield. Even if the audience longs to root for their friendship – for something good to happen in the humble couple’s lives – one comes to understand the deeply entrenched sense of entitlement among the upper social classes.

Through its fictional documentary, the feature reveals the realities of Korea’s employment practices, from corporate restructuring and unionisation to the human cost of being pushed out of work. It pairs well with the most recent Korean film to tackle these themes and make its way onto the international festival circuit: the sardonic thriller comedy No Other Choice (which premiered in Venice the year before).

Possible Love is a meticulously observed, deeply heartfelt drama about the yawning social chasm between the wealthy and the working class, which even genuine goodwill seems powerless to bridge. There is every reason to be grateful to Netflix for its help in bringing this remarkable film into existence, but Possible Love deserves to be experienced with the undivided attention only the cinema can command.

Selina Sondermann

Read more reviews from our Venice Film Festival 2026 coverage here.

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