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Hotel by the River(강변호텔)

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Korea · 2019
1h 36m
Director Hong Sang-soo
Starring Ki Joo-bong, Kim Min-hee, Song Seon-mi, Kwon Hae-hyo
Genre Drama

An aging poet, convinced he’s on the verge of death, invites his two estranged sons to join him at a riverside hotel. They spend the day together wrapping up loose ends in this somber and wintry black-and-white drama grounded in melancholy and realism.

Stream Hotel by the River

What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

88

Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen

A story of a poet, Hotel by the River comes to resemble a poetry collection itself, abounding in emotional currents and grace notes that are bracingly allowed to hang, free of reductive explication.

75

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

The relatively gentle, meditative, and straightforward Hotel by the River is like everything and nothing that Hong has made before; to say that it’s “just another Hong” movie is an accurate way of emphasizing what makes it special.

80

Variety by Guy Lodge

As a forlorn kind of hangout movie, then, Hotel by the Sea proceeds at a pleasing shuffle, spiked with bittersweet humor and even a gentle, surprising hint of sentimentality.

91

The Film Stage by Leonardo Goi

Slow-paced and meditative, Hotel by the River is a director’s plunge into a milieu where chuckles go hand in hand, often to ambiguous and conflicting extents, with a melancholic bracing for death.

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