A fine film with two couples, one job loss, and one documentary.

I just saw Pedro Almodovar’s “Bitter Christmas” at the Chicago International Film Festival,” and while I admired the performances and color palettes, I still felt it was lacking a certain essence and story construction. It should have blended both time periods more in order for us to really get into the mind of the character filmmakers.

And I just saw “Possible Love,” the latest film from South Korean filmmaker Lee-Chang-dong, which also uses filmmaking and pathos to represent characters and their lives. Except while “Bitter Christmas” was dishing on cult films, this one focuses on documentaries. And this one has a stronger character development within the drama. It’s the kind that uses emotions to represent the lives of struggling and successful people.

We meet two couples, one more successful than the other, who collide as part of a documentary on fired workers and their families. The documentarian is Lee Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong) and her wealthy husband is Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), and they cross paths with the unemployed welder Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu), his mask factory worker wife Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), and their little boy Cheol at the funeral of Ho-seok’s suicidal co-worker.

Lee believes the other couple would be perfect for her film, considering that Ho-seok was fired and was part of a strike that ended horribly. She even invites them to her husband’s house for a trip and potential interview with the fired worker. And this is when things get more complicated.

As I was watching the film, I thought the title “Possible Love” comes within Mi-ok and Sang-woo, who first meet when she drops her wedding ring in the parking lot and he finds it. And they also go skinny dipping in the ocean, although she rejects his advances. And as I’m watching these scenes, I question whether or not these two will have an affair.

But that’s not really the case with this film. It questions whether love can survive through circumstances and economic differences. Ho-seok has a drinking problem, which his wife constantly tells him to only drink at home. He even follows another father celebrating his child’s birthday on the same day as his own son’s. And he’s saddened by what happened on the day of the strike, that he can’t talk about it at a support group, only through tears during the filmed interview.

Now, we’ve seen two movies this year with two sets of couples dealing with troubles in their lives. Last summer, Olivia Wilde guided herself, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz in “The Invite,” which had two sets of neighbors meeting for a night of drinks, games, and truth. And this season, we have “Possible Love,” and I would say that both films speak for these couples and draw us into their lives. This one, however, is more melancholy because of what Ho-seok went through and how he handles his problems. It’s a complicated character, whose pain a major of us can’t acknowledge, and Sul Kyung-gu is devastatingly excellent in the role.

Think back to “Parasite,” which had a strong deposition of different classes, and what emerges from them. That was an original movie from the country that deserved to be hailed as a classic. “Possible Love” is not at that level, because it wants to be on a different, more sentimental level. And it does take some chances, when Ho-seok urinates all over the rich couple’s bathroom floor out of drunkenness and sadness, while Sango-woo is laughing hysterically.

There are no guarantees of a happy ending in this kind of genre, because it does represent life, and it makes us think about where these characters will go next. Lee Chang-dong and co-writer Oh Jung-mi take different angles and question these characters and their motives.

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