ARDOR opens up with Yoon-jin Kim swimming deep underwater as the opening title comes up. Shades of blue bounce off the surrounding light and she stares into the camera with an almost calm look. This simple and serene shot sets up the mood for the rest of the film as director Young-joo Byun takes us on a melancholy journey of lost love and love found.

A quick montage recaps her life as a normal, happy housewife and mother until the inciting incident is revealed. It is in these moments after the introduction that we discover her husband’s infidelity and the attack from his lover upon Yoon-jim Kim’s character, Mi-heun, which physically and emotionally changes her life forever. ARDOR finally begins six months later when Mi-heum and her family move to the countryside to escape and recover from the harsh event.

Young-joo Byun’s storytelling is definitely pretty, but the trouble in his cinematic paradise is the pacing. While every shot of Mi-heum sitting, standing, or staring in retrospect is painted gorgeously by its surroundings, it does little to push the story along gracefully and often comes off as emotionally redundant. Though, ARDOR slightly picks up once she begins having an affair of her own with a young doctor by the name of In-gyu. 

Mi-heum’s affair is explored captivatingly by how her character develops and revealed through their love making sessions and how she deals with her family during this time. It is easy to go back and forth in deciphering her intentions. Is it true love that she is rediscovering? Or is it a subconscious revenge on her husband’s unfaithfulness? One never truly knows and the ambiguity of her motivations is what makes ARDOR stand out from the usual “unfaithful” oriented pictures.

When the film ended, it brought me back to the opening shot with Mi-heum underwater, giving me a sense of clarity about the picture. They say that when a person drowns after the first gulp of water into their lungs, tranquility sets in. Is life so beautiful and difficult to live that it can be overwhelming sometimes? Because happiness is fleeting, do we all live in a drowned state? Of all the themes Young-Joo Byun takes us through, this one shines the brightest. 

In the end, ARDOR is a beautiful picture that, while psychologically thought provoking, is very numbing in its romance. Yoon-jim Kim does an extraordinary job taking her character through her arc and director Young-joo Byun surprising us every step of Mi-heum’s way. But it is the slowness and cinematically calm that can be a curse to some. Either way, ARDOR is a unique film that reinvents the infidelity drama.