Right Now, Wrong Then

A middle-aged artist, a young ingenue, existential crises, romantic fumblings and confessional drinkathons—like Monet and his water lilies, Hong Sang-soo keeps returning to the same core material and refining his pitch-perfect preoccupation with what fools lovelorn men can be. The South Korean filmmaker’s latest character study revolves around the reprise of a single situation—a famous director meets a beautiful painter who’s never heard of him—with very different results.