4 PM (2024) ‘Fantasia’ Movie Review: Anxiety-Ridden Drama Centered around a Sudden Intrusion

Jay Song’s “4 PM” opens in a harmless, amiable fashion. Jung-in (Oh Dal-su), a senior professor, takes a sabbatical and moves in with his wife, Hyun-sook ( Jang-young nam) to a house tucked away into the countryside. Though they moved into this new house as a break from the bustle of the city, having some likeness of a pleasant, good-mannered sociality with their sole neighbor, Yook-nam ( Kim Hong-pa), couldn’t have seemed a very disagreeable prospect. Little does the couple know the irremovable, burdensome presence the reclusive doctor will begin to exert on them.

The first gathering starts out as innocuous. After all, it was they who sought out interest in their only neighbor. Jung-in slips in a note through the doctor’s door, expressing an interest in getting to know one another. They are not prepared for how starkly different an interaction with their neighbor is from their imagination. When the doctor appears knocking at their door, the couple is initially delighted and full of expectations. This quickly turns to dismay and stomach-curling unease as the doctor is almost stone-like, instantly retreating into an impenetrable silence.

The nature and degree of his reserve are so peculiarly heightened that they create a sickening atmosphere of awkwardness. Jung-in tries to nudge him as best as he can. His mighty efforts to elicit a detailed reply from the doctor are no less than an ordeal. However, Yook-naam is most recalcitrant in his defiance of engaging with the couple at any elaborate length. To all questions, all he can muster is a monosyllabic response.

The real travail starts when the doctor starts regularly showing up precisely at 4 pm every afternoon, practically threatening entry. His span of engagement is fixed, strangely particular to the very minute. Every day, he unfailingly sticks to his two hours of visit. The couple toyed with tossing questions at him that’d compel him to open up beyond the few cursory words of acknowledgment and dismissal. But he is just a wall. He makes them aware that he knows he is ticking them off while also making it abundantly clear they have no choice but to fully indulge his forceful, silent company.

Jung-in prides on his calm temper and his strenuous politeness. Unlike his wife, he is unwilling to show himself and be perceived as rude or unkind. While she allows herself to be affected, he leans more to being in denial. He is so stubborn in his projection of inherent goodness and generosity the avalanche of mental strain, coerced into repression, takes in him vicious root. It gnaws away at him slowly but unshakably. Hyun-sook doesn’t wait for things to slide so dangerously to realize the catastrophic, debilitating effects circumstances could have if she doesn’t try to imagine alternatives to entirely avoiding them.

However, of course, the doctor’s unbending resolve to plant himself in their lives firmly breaches all the couple’s carefully laid plans. They devise varied ways of preventing his insistent incursion in their day. But how many days can they escape him by choosing to be out of the house during the two hours of his routine visit?

At one point, the couple decide to ignore Yook-nam’s knocks. However, he gets so frenzied it seems he might just as well break down the door. He is seething, demanding, and immediately refuses to buy into any of their explanations. He bats away Jung-in’s request that he must attend to his sick wife, commanding him to be with him instead and endure his presence. The level of his monomania swiftly surfaces to the couple as disorienting, terrifying, and suffocatingly inevitable.

“4 PM” hinges on Oh Dal-su’s excellent performance as a man who can’t help being known for his impeccable manners and unimpeachable genteelness, slowly careen over into unsalvageable raving impulses. Precluding the misstep of incorporating the man’s voiceover that’s wholly ineffective, it’s the widening cracks in a veneer of respectability that’s compelling to watch and one that Jay Song orchestrates with relish, especially in the first two acts. Though it does get sketchier and seems to have lost its way in the final stretch, “4 PM” cannily captures a state of being pushed to the edge.

4 PM screened at Fantasia Film Festival 2024.

4 PM (2024) Movie Links: IMDb, Letterboxd
The Cast of 4 PM (2024) Movie: Oh Dal-su, Kim Hong-pa, Jang Young-nam
4 PM (2024) Movie Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 111 min