Ah, moms — you can’t live with them, and you quite literally cannot live without them. Mother-daughter relationships are some of the richest, most complicated dynamics out there — particularly ones between mothers and their adult children who have left home and started a new life for themselves. The Mother and the Bear explores this connection in a unique way, painting a portrait of a mother and daughter’s relationship without ever showing them interacting at all.

What Is ‘The Mother and the Bear’ About?
Image via TIFF

Writer-director Johnny Ma’s The Mother and the Bear takes place against the backdrop of snowy, frigid Winnipeg, where 26-year-old Sumi (Leeree Park) lives. Her mother, Sara (Kim Ho-jung), can’t imagine why anyone would choose to live in such a place, much less Sumi, as it’s such a far cry — and long distance away — from her home in Korea. After Sumi suffers an accident that leaves her in a medically induced coma, however, Sara must travel to take care of her.

By snooping through her daughter’s new apartment and talking to her friends, Sara starts to get to know Sumi on a deeper level, discovering things she never told her. Despite this, she still simply can’t fathom why Sumi doesn’t yet have a nice husband and decides to help her find one by impersonating her on dating apps. But while Sara attempts to help her daughter find love, she may just end up finding it herself in the form of a kind restaurant owner named Sam (Lee Won-jae), who reminds her of home in this unfamiliar place and begins to help heal the heartbreak that started after she lost her husband 25 years ago.

‘The Mother and the Bear’ Works Because of Kim Ho-jung’s Performance
The Mother and the Bear is reminiscent of The Big Sick in the way that it explores culture clash and parents finding out more about their children while they’re in the hospital unable to communicate and has shades of Everything Everywhere All at Once with the mother-daughter story and LGBTQ+ themes. It’s also similar in tone, nicely balancing its more dramatic beats with sharp moments of comedy. Here, that tightrope act rests almost entirely on the shoulders of Ho-jung, who walks it with delightful ease, making us fall in love with Sara from the get-go — even when she’s being an overbearing busybody.

Ho-jung infuses Sara with a sense of natural wonder and curiosity, which leads to some gorgeous moments. One especially moving scene sees her imagining her daughter playing the piano, and the pure love she manages to express without a single line of dialogue is breathtaking. Inti Briones’ cinematography captures the tiny moments of joy Sara finds, particularly in her relationship with Sam as they finally explore the city. Food, too, emerges as its own love language between them, with the painstaking process of making the perfect kimchi to the comfort and connection a perfect bowl of noodles can evoke. Their slow-burn love story is one of the film’s highlights, as it’s touching and tells a type of love story we rarely get to see featured. The fact that it ultimately feels like a coming-of-age story for a woman in her 50s is quite a rare and lovely thing as well.

The film has a lot of heart, but it’s brimming with humor, too — some of it surprisingly edgy. Sara’s naivete gets her into some raunchy situations, like when she mistakes a vibrator for a neck massager or is clueless as to what the eggplant emoji means. Ho-jung is always game, throwing herself into even the most absurd situations and managing to make them grounded and authentic. Ma’s frequent use of mirrors in his direction is interesting and smart, serving to create moments of visual humor, like in a key convenience store scene, and stylishly explore Sara’s characterization — her sense of self and what she wants out of life.

‘The Mother and the Bear’s Ambiguity Works Against It
Image via TIFF

The fact that Sumi is in a coma and can’t interfere with her mother’s meddling is the point, but unfortunately, their lack of interaction makes it difficult to invest in their relationship and understand it on a more intimate level. The basics are there — Sara is clearly judgmental and tries to insert herself into areas of Sumi’s life she probably shouldn’t; Sumi is a private, independent, and creative soul — but we don’t get any specifics that provide depth and nuance. Getting flashbacks, a few moments of them speaking on the phone, or even just seeing Sara reminisce with more stories from Sara’s insight could provide more context for what unfolds and why these characters do what they do. Right now, the motivations are too broad and dependent on tropes as opposed to singular and fresh.

Over the course of its 100-minute runtime, the movie reveals unexpected connections between its web of characters, peeling back new layers and making us see people in a new light. At its best, this can provide fun surprises, like a modern-day Shakespeare play. At its worst, though, it can get vaguely confusing. The Mother and the Bear occasionally implies things that would be better spelled out a bit more clearly. As an audience member, the impact of the clever twists can get lost because we’re a few steps behind trying to figure out what’s actually happening.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the elephant — or, in this case, bear — in the room. Ma uses magical realism to weave in the titular animal, and while it’s an intriguing concept, its purpose never feels like it quite clicks. Again, the symbolism is too generic and muddled for it to have its intended effect, taking the viewer out of the story as opposed to enhancing it.

The Mother and the Bear succeeds because of the natural charm and complexities Ho-jung brings to its protagonist and her journey. While Ma’s script can feel broader than one might like when it comes to the core dynamic between Sara and Sumi, it thrives as a love story and character study and offers enough heartwarming moments of humor to make it well worth your while.

The Mother and the Bear had its World Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.