TIFF24 REVIEW: The Mother and the Bear [2026]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 100 minutes
Release Date: January 2nd, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Elevation Pictures / Dekanalog
Director(s): Johnny Ma
Writer(s): Johnny Ma

When Sumi (Leere Park) slips and falls in Winnipeg, leading doctors to put her in a medically induced coma so she can recover, the first thing her Korean mother (Kim Ho-jung’s Sara) thinks is that it never would have happened if she had a husband. A majority of her unanswered voicemails trade in the same topic—probably why they remain unanswered. Regardless, Sara cannot simply keep wishing her daughter will come home. Not when she’s healthy and definitely not now. So, she finally makes the journey to Canada herself to offer whatever assistance she can. Cleaning the house. Stocking the fridge with fresh kimchi. Setting up an online dating profile to find her a man.

Writer/director Johnny Ma knows this type of thinking isn’t simply a product of maternal parentage, though. The way the characters in his film The Mother and the Bear act proves it’s a Korean trait that afflicts both genders equally. Sara isn’t therefore the only parent on-screen who’s disappointed in their child. Sam (Lee Won-jae) is too. Not because Min (Jonathan Kim) is single, but because he’s dating a white woman (Samantha Kendrick’s Jennie). In a perfect world, Sara and Sam’s chance encounter would mean wedding bells for their kids. Well, their perfect world, at least. Because overbearing, traditional parents refuse to see that what they label “unorthodox” is actually what makes their children happiest.

That’s the lesson here. Unfortunately for them, though, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. To think your son or daughter is too stubborn to listen to (archaic) reason means you’re just as stubborn when it comes to understanding why. Sara and Sam are blind to it. They’re so wrapped up in their own desires that they cannot see how Sumi and Min will pull away in the belief that their chosen paths will never be accepted. And since she’s in a coma and he can’t put Jennie in the same room as his father without him storming off, Sara and Sam have nobody to open their eyes to that truth but each other. If they can stop making things worse first.

It’s really an ingenious way to tell this particular story because we’re so used to the fighting that comes with the generational divide. By mostly taking the children out of the equation narratively, we get to watch Sara’s journey towards clarity unencumbered by the usual clichéd conflicts. And since she doesn’t have Sumi to explain things (or reject them outright), she must jump into the fire without protection. That means getting her borrowed car towed for parking in front of a hydrant. Assaulting Sumi’s friend Amaya (Amara Pedroso) when she enters the apartment to feed the cat. And even risking the receipt of a dick pic while pretending to be her daughter online after unintentionally eating an edible.

Add the fact that her attempts to find love for Sumi ultimately put her on the path to going on her own dates with Sam and the whole endeavor proves as heartwarming as it is funny. It helps that Sara is such a purely innocent character despite her actions being anything but. She’s doing it with good intentions and she’s not averse to learning the error of her ways once things spiral out of control enough to potentially ruin lives in the process. Because, at the end of the day, it’s Sumi and Min who can teach their parents something about living for today rather than yesterday. Maybe it takes screwing everything up to realize family—no matter what form—is all that really matters.

I have to give Ma a lot of credit too for rendering everything so authentic despite its familiar tropes. At its core, The Mother and the Bear is a fish-out-of-water tale with Sara coming to a foreign land to see that everything she prejudicially dismissed as being corruptible might prove profound. So, we laugh at the easy juxtapositions of her warm-blooded Korean dealing with the shock of cold, but also her tenacity to overcome and begin stepping into her daughter’s shoes to experience it with open eyes. And while most films of this mother/daughter variety inevitably have a vibrator joke, this one is refreshing because it allows the gag to be Sara’s ignorance of its use. Not its discovery.

It’s that level of respect for the audience that shines throughout. Whenever the chance for an easy bit of drama arrives, Ma deftly keeps matters subdued so that the payoff can come with intent rather than bluster. Not that he won’t add some flourishes like a full-blown karaoke filter transposed above one of the many revelations Sara discovers. Just because he’s not catering to the lowest common denominator for laughs doesn’t mean the sweetness with which he colors everything isn’t still undeniably fun. When you have a central performance like the one Kim Ho-jung delivers, it’s hard not to get caught up in the pratfalls and pathos alike. In the end, it’s Sara who needs to wake up and discover there’s more to life than habit.