Interview with director Gina Kim of NEVER FOREVER, starring Vera Farmiga

David McInnis and Vera Farmiga in NEVER FOREVER.

Never Forever filmmaker Gina Kim mines the classic domestic melodramas of both the United States and Korea for an unapologetically sexy new spin on the form.

By Terry Keefe

It was while teaching film at Harvard that filmmaker Gina Kim found the inspiration for her new feature Never Forever. The plot centers around an American woman named Sophie (played by Vera Farmiga) who is married to a wealthy Korean-American Andrew (David McInnis) who attempts suicide when he is unable to impregnate her. Sophie then secretly hires an illegal Korean immigrant Jihah (Jung woo-Ha) to father the child. Filmmaker Kim was born and raised in Korea, and later moved to California to attend film school at CalArts, after which she obtained her Ivy League position and also began to put together the story of Never Forever. Recalls Kim, “Teaching at Harvard was the first time I lived on the east coast of the United States, and it was sort of an eye-opening experience. Up until that point, I hadn’t really been exposed to mainstream American culture, so to speak. I became much more aware of my race, and identity in general.” The manner in which Asian men are portrayed in the American media started to consume Kim’s attention in particular, especially in regards to their desirability and sex appeal. “There are these dumb, tragic stereotypes of Asian men,” she says. “On the one hand, they’re shown as geeks and nerds with glasses. At the other extreme, Asian men are seen as these poor immigrant guys, who are barely looked at as human beings. Neither of these images is supposed to be sexy at all, which I found tragic. I really wanted to explore the sexuality of Asian men on film, as well as the idea of female sexuality in general.”

As the characters of Sophie and Jihah meet repeatedly for sex, they slowly fall in love, and this unconventional business transaction that Sophie hoped would bolster the self-image of her husband instead becomes the catalyst for Sophie coming into her own as an individual. Although Never Forever contains a number of raw sex scenes, there is also an old-fashioned domestic melodrama feel to the film, as Sophie finds her inner strength and makes a break from society’s conventions. Kim readily points to the films of Douglas Sirk, the mid-century Hollywood king of the melodrama, as a major influence on Never Forever, although she also says she drew significant inspiration from what she calls “the classic 60s Korean cinema,” which often featured strong female characters in melodramatic plots as well. Says Kim, “I have always been struck by the fact that these types of female characters existed in Korean cinema. These films were visceral, radical, and amazing.” Where Kim broke paths from her Korean cinematic influences is in how their characters played out in the third act. “These films were basically tear-jerkers aimed at middle-aged women,” explains Kim. “So they had to compromise their ending sometimes. Their characters often compromised their integrity. When I was writing my film, I wondered what would happen if I took the conventional melodrama as the basic platform, but didn’t compromise the female character.”