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Korea · 2019
2h 15m
Director Kim Bo-ra
Starring Park Ji-hu, Kim Sae-byuk, Jeong In-gi, Lee Seung-yeon
Genre Drama
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Seoul, 1994. Deprived of attention from her family, fourteen-year-old Eunhee wanders the city giving her heart to anyone who might love her – until the arrival of Yongji, a sympathetic new teacher who will help her navigate the treacherous waters of adolescence.
A touch overlong, “House of Hummingbird” doesn’t leave the most powerful emotional mark. Still, it lands on a poignant aftertaste through Kim’s serene attentiveness to the rhythms and details of everyday life ... with a peaceful style reminiscent of Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Kim’s film is a compassionate piece on interpersonal connection that’ll touch your heart when it’s at its most vulnerable
Sensitive and lived-in and strong in ways that a more forceful version of this story could never have been, Bora’s debut sketches a portrait of a girl coming into her own strength, and learning to see the blank page of her life as an opportunity rather than a death sentence.
The Hollywood Reporter by Elizabeth Kerr
Sensitive, keenly observed and unflinchingly honest. ... House of Hummingbird can be a little too deliberate in its contemplations and contextualizing Eunhee in her solitude and search for intimacy can be bloated at times, but ultimately it's an assured and affecting portrait of teenaged uncertainty and insecurity.
The film is never more intense than when it’s finding parallels between its main character’s anomie and Korea’s dehumanizing expansion.
My one complaint about the film is that it is probably about half an hour too long for my liking (it’s almost 2.5 hours long). Otherwise, I thought it was one of the more honest portrayals of growing up in less than idyllic circumstances with a less than perfect family I’ve seen in quite some time.
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
Kim works like a pointillist with lots of short scenes and daubs of textured nuance that build the portrait incrementally.
RogerEbert.com by Peter Sobczynski
House of Hummingbird deserves a place alongside the likes of “The Virgin Suicides,” “The Ocean of Helena Lee” and “Eighth Grade” as one of the most knowing and intelligent cinematic takes on the pains and occasional pleasures of female adolescence of recent years.
The film meanders a bit, and dawdles a bit more. But its compelling and unblinking portrait of a girl’s life, her expectations, prospects, obstacles and second class status.
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