Na Hong-jin's Hope arrived at Cannes as the most expensive South Korean film ever made—a distinction that loaded the film with palpable anticipation. However, the movie falls short of justifying its price tag. What unfolds is all spectacle and little substance. Behind the excess, though, is an overreaching, unfinished work from an anxious filmmaker whose talent is still very much visible, and whose ambition may have overshot the runway.

In this review, Nicole Au reflects on the theme of self-sabotage in Good Will Hunting (1997).