Hotel by the River's reviews
Media reviews
The New Yorker
The brisk and lyrical action, filmed in chilly black-and-white tones, is adorned with eccentric, symbolic details; the petty stuff of daily life shudders with stifled conflict and looming calamity.
The A.V. Club
But despite its wry tone, the movie offers, in the character of Young-hwan, one of the filmmaker?s more caustic artist stand-ins. The aging sadsack poet can?t see anything outside of himself.
Variety
As a forlorn kind of hangout movie, then, Hotel by the Sea proceeds at a pleasing shuffle, spiked with bittersweet humor and even a gentle, surprising hint of sentimentality.
Indiewire
The relatively gentle, meditative, and straightforward Hotel by the River is like everything and nothing that Hong has made before; to say that it?s ?just another Hong? movie is an accurate way of emphasizing what makes it special.
The Hollywood Reporter
The sorrowful situations are frequently laced with chuckles
New York Times
Hotel by the River is ? surprisingly, from the standpoint of a skeptic ? one of Hong?s most unexpectedly poignant works, self-reflexive in a way that feels searching rather than rote.