To an even greater degree than in most Hong films, the film’s scenes of casual small talk, awkward silences, polite smiles, and glasses clinked to change the subject, open up faultlines in the characters’ lives.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
91
88
With each new film, Hong Sang-soo’s work becomes more subtextual, more fraught, even funnier.
67
The Film Stage by Ethan Vestby
It’s maybe dull for critics to praise compactness or pureness in one Hong film after another, and Walk Up will definitely not be anyone’s favorite, but it’s hard not to be sympathetic to something so personal.
90
Existing sharply in such a naturalistic register that they scarcely seem scripted at all, all the film’s interactions are still so cleverly designed that despite being blurry with alcohol or attraction or self-analysis, they all highlight the funny, sad truism that no one human can ever really know what it’s like to be another.