The Aisle Seat: “Parasite”: On the Side of the Ticks

Parasite is a terrific movie that twists a Downton Abbey scenario into a dark and neatly pitched farce that tackles the class war on several fronts while showing how both sides wind up feeding off each other in mutual need and mutual contempt.

First up is the Kims, a family of four ekeing it out in ridiculously tiny apartment in a mucky neighborhood in an unnamed South Korean city. They’re hustlers, tough, doughy and resourceful in their own desperate way; so desperate that when the neighborhood pest control sends clouds of insecticide billowing by, the Kims cheerfully leave the windows open for the free fumigation. Anything to make or save a won.

One day, the son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) meets up with his best friend Min-hyuk, who gives him a scholar’s rock (a good-luck charm). Along with the rock comes a job offer: Min-hyuk is leaving to study abroad. Would Ki-woo like to step into his shoes as English tutor for Da-hye (Jung Ji-so), the teen daughter of an upper-class family, the Parks?

What can Ki-woo say but yes? He knows little about tutoring anything but he’s a silver-tongued bullshitter and his new clients, the Parks, are so safely afloat in their shiny big bubble, they can barely tell. Ki-woo is an easygoing, loquacious and, therefore, fine by them.