The Shim’s Family are a dysfunctional family trying to stay together for the sake of staying together. The family also has quite a few skeletons in their family closet.

The father is a high school teacher that gets no respect at school. His reputation in school and at home takes another hit when a teenage girl films him sleeping in a motel room with her. The father’s secret is that he has been impotent for the last several years. The mother is frustrated not only by her husband’s impotence but from the lack of attention she recieves from all of her family members. The mother’s secret is that she believes she has cancer. Their son is suicidal but lacks the courage to commit suicide. He believes that his real father is someone else and in his past life he was a king. The daughter wonders why people should live with each other when they don’t love each other. When she walks home she wishes she could go into the house next door. The girl’s secret is that she has a crush on one of the teachers at her high school. The spinster aunt lives at the Shim’s house, still attempting to be a successful comic book writer.

Skeletons In The Closet aka The Shim’s Family is an interesting film to watch, filled with characters that are tormented by internal frustrations yet trying to live the life of a “normal” family, often having hilarious end results. Unfortunately the movie draws just too much influences from Sam Mendes “American Beauty” for me to give the movie a more enthusiastic response.

The influence of “American Beauty” runs throughout the film. The characters in the Shims Family resembled closely those in American Beauty, while the soundtrack and the occasional nature shots also seemed to mimic American Beauty. As in American Beauty, with Kevin Spacey’s character virtually sleep walking through life until being snapped out of his doldrum by a young high school student, “Skeletons In The Closet” has a father waddling through a meaningless life until his life gets turned upside down by a young high school aged girl. The Annette Benning character in American Beauty was driven for success but also suffered from loneliness in her marriage and eventually sought out an extramarital affair. Her paramour was a successful and confident real estate agent.

In “Skeletons In The Closet” the mother also suffered from loneliness in her marriage and eventually sought out an extramarital affair. The guy she was interested was a young confident guy that turned out to be keen on coffee. The daughter in American Beauty hated her parents and found solace with an eccentric boy next door. The daughter in “Skeletons In The Closet” hated her parents as well and found solace with an eccentric teacher at her school. The eccentric teacher played by Hae-Il Park (Voice Of A Murderer, Paradise Murdered, The Host) often mimicked the mannerisms of the eccentric boy next door and both characters shared a fascination with video. If Skeletons In The Closet simply did a “The Departed” and remade American Beauty for the Korean market than of course these issues would be moot, but for an original picture the similarities were just to close for comfort.

Even with such a xeroxed premise, Skeletons In The Closet managed to be an interesting film in its own right because of a strong cast of and well placed humorous episodes. Besides Hae-Il Park’s ill-conceived performance as the eccentric teacher/auteur, all the actors were engaging in an original manner. The son, played by Ah-in Yu, was perhaps my favorite character. The scene where he confronted his ex-girlfriend in the field about the internet video footage was embarrassing, but rip roaring funny. Kim Hye-Su makes another strong performance after her recent performances in Tazza and A Day For An Affair. When Kim Hye-Su was on the screen she always seemed to be able to lighten the mood with her amusing mannerisms – from butt scratching to head scratching to the “how the hell do I use a rice cooker?” looks. The moment that had me dying with laughter would have been the finale when Kim Hye-Su briefly flashed out her “cobra” kung-fu move when threatened by a gang of neighbors.

While corporate life was the cause of a lot of grief in American Beauty, the prominent role of the internet was the cause of a lot of grief in Skeletons In The Closet. The most memorable scene being when the father, Chang-Soo was about to strike one of his students in the classroom . At that moment all the students whipped out their cellphones to record the moment for the internet. Perhaps this scene was inspired by Dasepo Naughty Girls? Furthermore the video of Chang-Soo sleeping in the motel was rapidly shared on the internet causing a huge scandal. The scandal existed even though the video footage showed Chang-Soo fully clothed & sleeping on the bed.

In retrospect what Skeletons In The Closet does best is to enumerate the problems of “normal” Korean family life by exaggerating those situations, often with a good dose of black comedy. The Shims Family is an interesting satire on Korean life, tactfully tightrope walking the line between shocking and amusing moments. Unfortunately the setup was not so graceful, having a copied feel due to its way too similar setup with American Beauty. Unlike that film, Skeletons In The Closet’s final message seemed to be muddled by a need to be original but mired by a premise that was xeroxed from such a notable film. If only….