South Korean independent film “Homeward Bound” is a little family movie with secrets to be revealed in one way or another. As each of its main characters struggles to handle their rather tricky circumstance while hiding each own secret, the movie earnestly and steadily develops the story with human details to observe, and we come to care more about their respective issues. 

The center of the story is a middle-aged female schoolteacher named Jeong-ha (Jang Young-nam). Although she lost her husband due to an unfortunate incident more than 10 years ago, she remains unmarried as teaching art at a high school located in some local city, and her only son Jin-woo (Ryu Kyung-soo) has been in Canada for some time for preparing for getting a good company job in South Korea someday.

Around the time when she is going to take a leave due to some illness, Jeong-ha is surprised to see that Jin-woo returns to South Korean along with his Korean Canadian girlfriend Jenny (Stephanie Lee). Although nothing much is certain for them at present, Jin-woo and Jenny recently decided to marry simply because they love and care about each other a lot, and Jeong-ha has no problem with that even though she is still concerned about her son’s prospect. While Jenny is soon going to become a medical doctor, Jin-woo has seriously been considering following his real personal passion, and Jeong-ha is not so sure about whether her son makes the right decision about his life and career.

However, it later turns out that there is something Jeong-ha did not tell her son, not long after she lets her son and Jenny into her little but cozy house. A woman named Ji-seon (Ok Ji-young) unexpectedly comes to the house, and we gradually gather that she is actually Jeong-ha’s longtime partner, though Jeong-ha hesitates to reveal their romantic relationship as well as her current illness to her son and future daughter-in-law. 

And then things become more complicated when it also turns out that Jenny’s parents, Moon-cheol (Park Ji-il) and Ha-yeong (Park Ji-a), come to the town without telling anything to their daughter in advance. Mainly because they cannot get any hotel room to stay due to some big local event, Jenny’s parents agree to stay in Jeong-ha’s house, and this surely makes Jeong-ha feel more awkward than before. She simply presents her partner as a close friend, but everyone else naturally wonders more about why Jeong-ha has lived so closely with Ji-seon under the same roof.

As Jeong-ha tries to find the right moment for telling everything to her son and Jenny, the movie generates some laughs from how rude and superficial Jenny’s father is. He only cares about whether his future son-in-law can meet his expectation, and this certainly makes everyone around him quite uncomfortable to say the least. While Jenny comes to show more discontent and resentment toward her father, Ha-yeong tries to handle the situation as peacefully as possible, and we come to sense more of how much she has probably tolerated her husband for many years.

Now you may be reminded of similar queer family films such as, yes, Mike Nichols’ “The Birdcage” (1996), but the movie distinguishes itself as showing some sympathy and understanding to all of its main characters, who turn out to be a bit more complex than expected. While trying to make her son have some second thought about his life and career, Jeong-ha finds herself trying to have him under her control just like her husband did in the past. While certainly frustrated with Jeong-ha hiding their relationship from the others around her including her son, Ji-son remains patient and understanding as a person who has known and loved her a lot for a long time. In case of Jenny’s parents, it is later revealed that they have some personal issues of their own, and that is often contrasted with the loving relationship between Jin-woo and Jenny, who do not care that much about the scale of their wedding simply because, well, they love each other.

You will not be surprised when the story eventually culminates to a dramatic moment among these main characters as their hidden issues are uncovered one by one, but the screenplay by director/writer Kim Dae-hwan, who previously impressed me a lot with “The First Lap” (2017), tactfully handles this expected part with enough humor and sensitivity, and the movie is also supported well by the solid acting from its small main cast. As Jang Young-nam diligently holds the center with her low-key performance to be appreciated for subtle touches to notice, Ryon Kyung-soo, Stephanie Lee, Ok Ji-young, and Park Ji-il have each own good moment around Jang, and the special mention goes to Park Ji-a, who fills her rather thankless supporting role with a considerable amount of personality and humanity.

On the whole, “Homeward Bound” is relatively lightweight compared to “The First Lap”, but it is still an enjoyable mix of humor and drama which will also indirectly remind you of why it is important to show more love, support, and recognition to many LGBTQ+ people out there. Around the end of the story, there are a lot of things to handle for Jeong-ha, but there is also a little but precious sense of hope and optimism for her and her partner nonetheless, and you will come to root for her more as the end credits roll.