A Girl At My Door

The pic is ultimately held together by the mesmerizing presence of Bae Doo-na in the title role and an equally bracing performance by teen thesp Kim Sae-ron.

While Jung's efforts to avoid sensationalism and employ multiple threads are very admirable, the result is a mild-mannered piece short of a sufficiently substantial exposition of its plethora of characters and the problem they face.

A Girl at My Door is not revolutionary or radical cinema, but it gestures 
towards new and bold representations of kinship and community that are sorely missing 
in society.

Happily, The Girl at My Door gives the divine Ms Bae an opportunity to flex all of her acting muscles, albeit with small, delicate motions.

This thought-provoking film grips. With its two outstanding leads, it couldn't fail to.

Though the plotting is by turns too opaque and then ultimately too convoluted to be entirely satisfying as a drama, Bae and Kim are consistently compelling as oppressed characters who find a strange kinship in an intolerant society.

[Here,] the city slicker is a taciturn lesbian police chief with a scandalous past, a passionate dislike of bullies and a penchant for lonely late-night drinking sessions. She's played, with mesmeric stillness, by rising star Doona Bae.

The provocative themes ultimately get lost in the surfeit of overwrought emotions.

A detective story with a satisfying social justice twist.