Three friends drift apart after high school and struggle to reconnect in this South Korean coming-of-age drama from directors Lee Jae-eun and Lim Jisun. With their high school final exams approaching, friends Jung-hee (Kim Jua), Min-young (Yoon Seoyoung), and Sanna (Son Dahyeon) decide to formally disband their acrostic poetry club in order to concentrate on their studies. They hold one last session together to read their favourite compositions and immortalize their club with a group photo of the three of them.
At Jung-hee’s big exam, she lends her watch to the boy in front of her and spends most of her time daydreaming out the window. As Sanna and Min-young head off to university, Jung-hee seems uninterested in pursuing higher education and wonders about her path forward. Her generosity during the exam is repaid when the boy helps her land a part-time job at his father’s tennis club. There, she picks up tennis balls and mans the court-side office. There’s plenty of lonely downtime during which she largely daydreams, staring off into the forest behind the tennis court.
After the summer, Jung-hee tries to reconvene the poetry club via video calls but it proves challenging. Min-young is always late (or doesn’t show), and Sanna, who is studying at Harvard, becomes increasingly frustrated with her friends’ lack of preparation and Min-young’s irresponsibility. Sanna quits the poetry club, effectively dismantling it altogether much to Jung-hee’s disappointment. Jung-hee finds herself feeling increasingly isolated, amplified when she is let go from her job. When Min-young invites Jung-hee to come visit her in Seoul, Jung-hee leaps at the chance.
With her suitcase packed with games, to-do lists, and activities, Jung-hee’s vision of her reunion with Min-young sadly doesn’t live up to reality. Min-young spends most of her time on her laptop messaging other friends and emailing her professors with desperate pleas to change her terrible grades. When she does engage with Jung-hee, it is often to ask pointed questions about Jung-hee’s future and criticize her for not pursuing post-secondary education—a hypocritical stance considering Min-young’s lackadaisical approach to her own education. Feeling increasingly unwelcome and awkward, Jung-hee turns to her imagination, remembering both real and fictional scenes of friendship that play out onscreen.
The tension comes to a head when Jung-hee confronts Min-young about her behaviour. They make another attempt to rekindle their easy companionship of the past, but it is undermined (again) when Min-young abandons Jung-hee. Alone in Min-young’s apartment, Jung-hee finds Min-young’s diary and personal videos, forcing her to revisit their friendship in a new light. It prompts Jung-hee to come to terms with growing apart and to forge her own path forward.
The film’s slow pacing emphasizes the film’s somewhat melancholic tone, but sprinkles of dry humour throughout provide relief and echo Jung-hee’s hope. The film picks up on Jung-hee’s nature as a dreamer and artist to fill the sometimes banal spaces with scenes from her memory and imagination, from remembering bike rides in the rain and attempting absurd pranks, to imagining a tranquil forest escape and living out an episode of an old sitcom. It creates a needed change of pace in the film and speaks to Jung-hee’s struggle with the shift to adulthood.
Kim Min-Young of the Report Card is a solid feature debut from directors Lee Jae-eun and Lim Jisun, who have each previously directed their own short films. Kim Min-Young of the Report Card was selected for this year’s Rotterdam film festival as part of the Bright Futures program.