Lee Chang-dong hasn't made a film since Burning in 2018. That gap ended today at the Venice Film Festival, where Possible Love premiered to what's shaping up as the most consistently praised reception of the whole festival.

The film follows two married couples whose lives tangle together, one household on the losing end of a factory layoff, the other cushioned by money and a beach house. Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong carry it. Netflix financed the project and holds international rights, and it's already confirmed an Oscar-qualifying theatrical release across Korea, the US, and a handful of other territories, with the American run set for October. The Korean Film Council has picked it as the country's official submission for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, which tells you how much confidence there is behind this one before a single ticket sells outside the festival circuit.

And the reviews back that confidence up. Deadline's Pete Hammond called the cast "well chosen," each of the four leads getting real material to work with. The Guardian handed it four stars, describing the film as "finely judged, beautifully acted and rather novelistic," while praising Lee for treating his audience as intelligent rather than spelling everything out. Time went with "a delicate drama of love and longing in anxious times." The International Cinephile Society gave it 4.5 out of 5, calling it "an absolute knockout." Screen International called it "powerful" and "enigmatic," THR went with "transfixing meditation," and Indiewire simply said "stunner."

Variety's review, arguably the most detailed of the lot, calls it a "beautifully mature, quietly colossal relationship drama" and singles out Jeon Do-yeon's performance as one of the most intricate of the year. The film reportedly threads Korean classism and labor exploitation through what's ostensibly a domestic drama, with a subplot involving factory layoffs, a wave of suicides among laid-off workers, and a documentary filmmaker who inserts herself into a struggling family's life. Variety notes the film carries a dedication to Kieślowski and Piesiewicz's Dekalog 10, positioning it as the second entry in a planned ten-film series of directors reworking the Dekalog commandments, following Asghar Farhadi's Parallel Tales. Lee's story, per Variety, has no direct plot connection to the original, but the theme of coveting what you don't have runs quietly underneath everything.

What happens next is mostly a scheduling question. Korea gets its own release window, the US follows in October, and from there it's a matter of whether Venice enthusiasm survives contact with the wider Oscar campaign season. Lee hasn't been prolific. Eight years between films is a long wait, and this is only his eighth feature. Whether Possible Love ends up on the nominees list in a few months is one thing. Whether it becomes the film people are still talking about after the Academy race is done is the more interesting question, and that one won't get answered until October at the earliest.