In The Call (2020), director Lee Chung-hyun crafts a taut psychological thriller that transcends its time-bending premise through meticulous storytelling and raw emotional resonance. The South Korean film, centered on a mysterious phone connecting two women across two decades, thrives not on its sci-fi conceit but on the interplay of human desperation and moral ambiguity. Lee’s direction is a masterclass in pacing, weaving a narrative that feels both claustrophobic and expansive, with each twist landing like a carefully placed chess move. The screenplay, adapted from The Caller (2011), sharpens its source material by grounding the fantastical in visceral character studies. Park Shin-hye’s Seo-yeon is a portrait of quiet fragility, her understated expressions carrying the weight of past traumas, while Jeon Jong-seo’s Young-sook delivers a chilling blend of menace and vulnerability, her performance oscillating between predator and prey. Their chemistry, built entirely through voice and reaction, is the film’s pulsing heart, making their temporal disconnection feel achingly intimate.

Cinematographer Cho Young-jik elevates the film’s mood with a muted palette of grays and blues, mirroring the emotional desolation of the characters’ worlds. The camera lingers on small details a cracked phone screen, a flickering light transforming mundane objects into harbingers of dread. The Busan setting, with its rain-soaked streets and isolated houses, becomes a character in itself, amplifying the sense of entrapment. However, the score by Dalpalan, while atmospheric, occasionally leans too heavily on predictable strings, risking melodrama in moments that needed silence to breathe. A more restrained soundscape could have deepened the film’s unsettling tone.

The film’s exploration of choice and consequence is its intellectual core, posing questions about fate without spoon-feeding answers. Yet, it falters slightly in its final act, where the narrative’s ambition strains against a few rushed resolutions, leaving some emotional threads dangling. These missteps, though, are minor against the film’s broader triumph: its ability to make the audience feel the weight of time as both a bridge and a chasm. The Call is a rare thriller that respects its viewers, inviting them to unravel its moral complexities long after the screen fades.