Johnny Ma’s sweet, scattered ‘The Mother and the Bear’

Sara’s curiosities about Sumi’s life emerge side-by-side with her desire to find her a Korean spouse. This is the movie’s central thematic tug-of-war, and that it unfolds while Sumi is comatose makes for a near-perfect metaphor, in which she’s rendered helpless to her mother’s whims. It’s during this search that Sara runs into a handsome Korean Canadian man, Min (Jonathan Kim), who she hopes to set Sumi up with, but she discovers that he’s coincidentally dating Sumi’s white doctor Jeannie (Samantha Kendrick). Sara also wanders into a Korean restaurant and befriends its helpful, divorced owner Sam (Won Jae-Lee), who in an equally enormous coincidence, happens to be Min’s father—and disapproves of his son’s relationship with Jeannie—a dynamic that isn’t really broached until near the end.

Elsewhere, while cleaning her daughter’s apartment, Sara also runs into Sumi’s caring, free-spirited coworker Amaya (Amara Pedroso Saquel), who veers in and out of the story seemingly at random, until the movie briefly confers enormous importance upon her in its closing act. Amaya briefly functions as a window into a life Sara knows little about, but the tale often unfolds in scattered fashion, rarely latching onto a single character or detour long enough for them to make a difference.

Min (Jonathan Kim) and Jeannie (Samantha Kendrick) in "The Mother and the Bear."

Courtesy of FilmNation Entertainment

So, what exactly is the plot of The Mother and the Bear? On one hand, it involves Sara setting up an online dating account for her daughter while trying to find her a Korean husband, during which she matches with (and starts talking to) Min, while sharing racy photos of herself in her daughter’s stead. You’d think this awkward, amusing conundrum would be the meat of the story—it’s the kind of hilarious dilemma on which the 1995 Sandra Bullock romance While You Were Sleeping was based—but the film is too half-baked to excavate this scenario’s awkward moral dimensions. As an act of catfishing and impersonation meant to break up an existing relationship, it positions Sara as a destructive and selfish homewrecker, but the film is also so reliant on its eventual, un-foreshadowed twists and turns that it doesn’t need to engage with its own material in the meantime. It knows things will all work out in the end, so the intervening feels passive.

On the other hand, Sara’s cutesy hesitance with Sam—a single immigrant man her own age—similarly projects romantic outcomes without putting in the necessary leg work. None of their interactions en route to Sara’s eventual self-discoveries feel meaningful enough to support a coming-of-middle-age rom com. Complicating the story further is the fact that, more often than not, plot turns concerning Sam, Min and Amaya arise thanks to some message or notification on Sara’s cell phone, but we’re never let in on what she sees, or why she rushes from one location to the next, which makes for an especially bewildering structure.

Won Jae-Lee as Sam in "The Mother and the Bear."

Courtesy of FilmNation Entertainment

Kim’s performance as Sara is saccharine enough to keep the film inviting, and Ma’s conception of Winnipeg as a place of wintery magic (like Universal Language sans the surrealism) establishes broad enough romantic comedy contours. The Mother and the Bear is, therefore, inoffensive enough to make for turn-your-brain-off viewing, but the problem is it makes for an equally turn-your-heart-off experience too. Its unobtrusive storytelling lacks the warmth of a comforting holiday watch, and seldom allows its characters’ cultural baggage to grow beyond the broad strokes of outsidership, and the generational skirmishes that have long defined parent-child stories about Asian immigrants set in the west.

Worse yet, the very same lack of autonomy foisted upon Sumi is inadvertently embodied by the film itself. By centering Sara’s saga of self-discovery, The Mother and the Bear denies Sumi any and all cinematic agency by not having the mother-daughter duo interact at all during the 100 minute runtime. The result is a well-meaning story that zigs in a dozen directions without the catharsis of eventual zags.

While in Winnipeg to take care of her comatose daughter, Sara (Kim Ho-jung) discovers many things about both of their lives.

Courtesy of FilmNation Entertainment