South Korean independent film “Silver Apricot” is about one young woman who must deal with several flawed family members who have been estranged from her for many years. This is surely a familiar story setting, but the movie did a good job of balancing itself between humor and drama as deftly developing its main characters along the story, and we are alternatively amused and touched while having some understanding on our heroine and her family members.

At first, the movie establishes how Jeong-seo (Na Ae-jin), a young female independent online cartoonist who has been earning her meager living as an office worker, happens to need to get a considerable amount of cash as soon as possible. She recently won an apartment application, and she and her boyfriend Kyeong-hyeon (Kang Bong-sung), who is one of the co-workers at her current workplace and has also been planning along with her on getting married sooner or later, are certainly delighted for that, but, alas, they do not have enough money to pay the deposit right now. Jung-seo later asks for some cash from her divorced mother Mi-yeong (Park Hyun-sook), but Mi-yeong only suggests that Jeong-seo should go to her father Young-joo (Ahn Suk-hwan) instead, who promised to pay his ex-wife 90 million won during their divorce but has not yet paid any of her alimony at all.

With a little old I.O.U. paper written by her father at that time, Jeong-seo goes to a little seaside town where her father has lived with his second wife Kyeong-ok (Yoon Seo-jung) and his stepdaughter Jeong-hae (Kim Jin-young). Not so surprisingly, Young-joo is not so willing to pay her 90 million won right now even though he willingly welcomes his daughter, and his second wife is certainly not so pleased with Jeong-seo’s visit, though Jeong-hae is delighted to see her older stepsister again.

As getting stuck more and more with these family members of hers during next several days, Jeong-seo is reminded again and again of why she still does not like them that much. Her father keeps promising her that he will find an alternative for her urgent need of cash, but he only comes to show more of how unreliable he really is, and this becomes more evident to her when Jung-seo’s boyfriend eventually comes to meet her family members. While Kyeong-ok often emphasizes to Jung-seo that she will not step back at all for the interest of her and her daughter, Jeong-hae turns out to have a little motive behind befriending her older stepsister again, and that certainly brings more headache for Jeong-seo.

At least, Jeong-seo gets some consolation from her two old friends, though both of them remind her more of why she left her hometown. While Hae-jeong (Park Mi-so) is now working as a local taxi driver, Tae-joon (Jo Ha-sung) chose to pursue a military career instead of becoming a cartoonist just like her, and he and Jeong-seo come to have a bitter reflection on how things have changed for both of them, when they happen to have a little private time between them at one point in the middle of the story.

Leisurely rolling its story and characters, the screenplay by director/writer Jang Man-min, who makes a feature film debut here after making several short films, fleshes out its complicated main characters with more details and emotions. As not only her family members but also her boyfriend frustrate and annoy her more and more along the story, Jeong-seo comes to reflect more on what she really wants – what she really should do for that. Yes, she really wants to have a stable residence to help her pay more attention to drawing her little online cartoon, but she has also been becoming a mere office worker just like her boyfriend, and that makes her all the more conflicted about whether it is actually worthwhile to get the money by any means necessary for paying the deposit for her future apartment. While letting down her in one way or another, Jeong-seo’s family members turn out to have each own reason behind their back, and Jeong-seo comes to see more of herself from her younger stepsister, who is also eager to get away from her hometown as soon as possible just like Jeong-seo once was many years ago.

As the center of the film, Na Ae-jin, who incidentally received an award for her performance when it was shown at the Jeonju International Film Festival early in last year, is convincing as a jaded young woman who has had a fair share of disappointment and frustration throughout her whole life. Even when her character makes a couple of big decisions around the end of the story, Na steadily maintains her low-key acting without any misstep, and we come to root for her character more than before.

Around Na, Jang assembles a number of good performers, who have each own moment as ably supporting her. While Ahn Suk-hwan makes his utterly pathetic character somehow likable without any excuse at all, Yoon Seo-jung, Jo Ha-sung, Park Mi-so, Kang Bong-sung, and Kim Jin-young are also effective in their respective parts, and Park Hyun-sook is especially good when her character and Jeong-seo happen to have a brief private conversation on their strained relationship later in the story.

In conclusion, “Silver Apricot” is a solid family drama which distinguishes itself enough with engaging storytelling and performance, which thankfully compensate for several flaws to notice (I do not think changing the screen ratio more than once does not work as dramatically as intended, for example). In short, Jang made a commendable start here in this film, and it will be interesting to see what may come from him next.