Columbus (2017 film)


Columbus is a 2017 American drama film written, directed, and edited by Kogonada in his feature directorial debut. The film follows the son of a renowned architecture scholar who gets stranded in Columbus, Indiana, and strikes up a friendship with a young architecture enthusiast who works at the local library. Michelle Forbes, Rory Culkin, and Parker Posey appear in supporting roles. The film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was released in the United States on August 4, 2017, by the Sundance Institute, receiving acclaim from critics.

Plot

In Columbus, Indiana, Jin arrives from South Korea to watch over his estranged father who, while visiting the town to give a lecture about architecture, has fallen into a coma and is now in a local hospital. Jin meets Casey, a young woman who works in a library near the hospital. Casey takes care of her mother, a recovering drug addict.
Casey and Jin strike up rapport, as Casey guides Jin around Columbus. The two discuss the local architecture while simultaneously opening up about themselves to each other. Jin reveals his feelings of resentment toward his father, whom Jin believes to have cared more about work than for him. Casey also opens up about her dream of working in the architecture industry. However, she confesses that she cannot leave her mother in order to pursue it. Jin advises that it is her life and that Casey is holding herself back.
One night, Casey and Jin are wandering around Columbus when Casey discovers that her mother had been lying to her, and has perhaps relapsed. Following this incident, Casey comes to the conclusion that it is in her best interest to move on and decides to leave Columbus and pursue her dream. Jin and Casey share a tender hug goodbye and Casey leaves, while Jin stays behind to watch over his ailing father.

Cast

The film began shooting on July 31, 2016, and concluded on August 20, 2016. The film was shot on location in Columbus, Indiana, over 18 days.
Kogonada was inspired by director Yasujirō Ozu, particularly his 1951 film Early Summer, incorporating elements of his style and shot selection into Columbus. He notes the similar use of negative space in Columbus, explaining that "architecture is the structuring of emptiness", which he compares to that of human emotion.

Architecture

Among the famous Modernist buildings that feature in the film are the First Christian Church by Eliel Saarinen, the Irwin Union Bank, Miller House, and North Christian Church by Eliel's son Eero Saarinen, and the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library by I. M. Pei. For more information see Columbus, Indiana.
Kogonada visited Columbus on holiday. Inspired by the city's architecture, he stated that he "deeply wanted it to be a part of the first film I made". He describes the buildings there as having "an extraordinary premise for drama" and that the architecture of which forms the common ground between Jin and Casey when they are first introduced.

Soundtrack

Kogonada sought out Hammock to create the soundtrack for Columbus after reading an interview with the band, claiming "they were talking about the relationship between absence and presence in their music – which was a mind-blowing moment – and I thought, ‘They have to be the music for this film.’"
;Track listing

Release

The film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2017. The film was released on August 4, 2017, by the Sundance Institute The film was later released in the United Kingdom and Ireland, on October 5, 2018.

Box office

Columbus had a domestic opening weekend gross of $28,800 from two theaters, one located in New York City and the other located in Los Angeles, averaging $14,400 per theater. In its second weekend of release, Columbus grossed $44,460 from seven theaters, averaging $6,351 per theater. In its third weekend of release, Columbus grossed $44,450 from twelve theaters, averaging $3,705 per theater.
In Columbus, Indiana, the setting of the film, Columbus sold a record breaking 8,953 tickets over the course of a six-week local run playing at the "YES Cinema". The previous record holder was The King's Speech with 3,700 tickets sold over a nine-week run.
Internationally, the film grossed $75,970 following release; $13,824 gross total in Portugal; $6,671 gross total in the United Kingdom; $55,475 gross total in South Korea.

Critical response

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 124 reviews, with an average rating of 8.29/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Wonderfully acted and artfully composed, Columbus balances the clean lines of architecture against the messiness of love, with tenderly moving results." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 89 out of 100, based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Haley Lu Richardson was praised for her performance in the film with Brian Formo of Collider writing "Richardson puts the story on her shoulders and elevates the film into a beguiling, thin air. She lends the beautiful but empty buildings a beating heart" while Oliver Jones of The New York Observer commended Richardson's "naturalism". John Cho received praise as well, with Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly writing that "Cho gives Jin a real warmth and empathy". Other critics, such as Geoff Berkshire of Variety, praised the leading pair of Cho and Richardson. Berkshire wrote that "At the center of it all, amid the buildings, are Cho and Richardson. One veteran demonstrating his untapped ability as a captivatingly sincere leading man, and one relative newcomer proving her ability of holding the screen with maximum soulfulness in a minimalist drama. Together they form an unexpected, but perfectly constructed, pair."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote, "How do you make a ravishing romance about architecture? You'll find the answer with Kogonada, the video essayist and critic whose debut feature, Columbus, is a spellbinder." Wrapping up his review, Travers concluded that "Columbus is a whisper-soft debut from Kogonada that nonetheless results in something unique and unforgettable. It's pure cinema." In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, Boyd van Hoeij called the film a "quietly masterful feature debut" for Kogonada and wrote, "One of the film's chief pleasures is how it keeps the conversation between the various characters flowing while gently avoiding falling into any of the possible romantic-entanglement traps that viewers used to more conventional romantic works might be expecting. The fact it is accessible for people without any prior knowledge of either Modernism or architecture in general is another plus, though the film's clearly too thoughtful and quietly masterful to ever qualify as a real crowd-pleaser."

Accolades

Top Ten Lists

Columbus was listed as one of the best films of the year by several critics. This is a sampling.