This starts off like We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011), as divorced mother Young-eun (Kwak Sun-young) struggles with her kindergarten-age daughter So-hyun (Gi So-you), who is a budding sadistic psychopath desperate for a maternal love that Yeong-eun cannot bring herself to give. Two decades later, as bereft mother Hyeon-gyeong (Shin Dong-mi), who has already adopted adult orphan Kim Min (Kwon Yu-ri), takes in another orphan Hae-young (Lee Sul) in need of love, the tensions, jealousies and secrets in this domestic set-up will have the viewer suspecting that somebody here is the dangerous So-hyun, but not sure who exactly.

The thematic preoccupation of Kim Yeo-jung and Lee Jung-chan’s thriller is the mother-daughter bond, whether over, ersatz or impending. For here maternity itself comes battered and scarred, in an intense portrayal of desperate neediness and affectless determination, with an ending that is breathtakingly uncompromising in its refusal to pander to sentiment.

Anton Bitel