Warning: This review contains significant spoilers and key plot details but keeps the film’s charms intact.

We are accustomed to watching breathtakingly successful characters on the screen. That is the norm of the average, mainstream cinema. But what happens to the stories of those who are unsuccessful, who did not make it in life?

Korean filmmakers often venture into territories their industry typically avoids, exploring delicate subject matter. From romance to reunification with North Korea and the obsession with Korean beauty standards, lots of marginalized themes are regularly taken up by the bold directors. They are the ones who bring the hallmarks of what it truly means to be world-class cinema to the Korean film industry.

Films like Ajoomma (2022) depict disillusioned K-drama fans confronting Korea’s reality after visiting the country. The Net (2016) tells the story of a North Korean who arrives in South Korea after his boat’s engine breaks down and the fate he faces thereafter.

Microhabitat is a 2017 film that belongs in the same gallery. It explores the life of a woman in her thirties, destined to drift away with the tide of changing times. The Korean title, 소공녀, means A Little Princess.

The plot follows a woman who could not keep up with life’s demands and was left behind. Yet, she lived in her own world, never allowing reality to take it away, despite everything.

A Korean Elanor Rigby

“Eleanor Rigby” is a Beatles song from their 1966 album Revolver. At that time, it was considered experimental. It remains a poetic and heartbreaking listen to this day, chronicling the life of a lonely woman who dies in a church with no one to attend her funeral. Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote it together.

Singing about lost and lonely people is often easy, but translating it on screen is just as challenging. Microhabitat accomplishes this perfectly. It centers on Miso, a woman living alone in a tiny apartment. Her name means ‘smile’ in Korean. She frequently sips from a juice pack, which she calls her “medicine,” claiming it prevents her hair from turning gray.

Miso lives for three things: her cigarettes, her whiskey, and her boyfriend. These define her existence, and she cannot part with any of them. Working as a housekeeper, she earns barely enough to cover her rent and the cost of her smokes and booze. 

The film does not clarify whether she ever sought a better life or more comfort. She probably forgot to try.

The opening scene starts with Miso scrubbing the staircases of one of her clients’ duplex apartments and tidying it up. After receiving payment, she borrows some rice from her

After walking home, she discovered the plastic bag had a leak and rice grains were spilling onto the road, eaten by the city’s pigeons. By the time she reached home, the bag was empty, leaving her without rice once again.

Price Hike

In the film’s opening minutes, New Year’s Eve lights up the city as fireworks illuminate the skyline. The calendar turns to 2015, and Miso learns that the price of her favorite cigarettes has gone up. She is forced to buy a cheaper brand.

She keeps a chest in her apartment for her money and a notebook to track her spending. When her landlord raises the rent as well, she crosses out housing from her budget—just to afford her cigarettes and the daily whiskey.

She leaves her apartment with all her belongings packed into a backpack and a suitcase, carrying a list of contacts in her hand. They are her university bandmates—drummers, keyboardists, and vocalists. She visits them one by one, always carrying a crate of eggs as a gift, hoping for a one-night stay or longer if luck is kind to her.

Except for the first, the rest of her friends host her on their own terms and conditions, none of which work out for her in the long run. Often, she chooses to leave when she feels she is complicating their lives. Most are now married with their own families. None of them sing anymore, and no one has pursued music.

She had only two male bandmates. She discovers that one is depressed after a divorce, trapped in a house he bought for his ex-wife, with a loan he must keep repaying for the rest of his life. The other, who never married, suffers from a prostate condition.  At first, his family gives Miso a warm welcome, but soon tries to lock her up and coerce her into marrying him, forcing her to escape.

Miso starts looking for an affordable place in the rougher parts of downtown, all the while carrying her giant backpack and luggage with her, but she fails.

Aftermath

Her boyfriend, a failed webtoon artist, soon leaves for Saudi Arabia, telling her that it is his only chance to earn money. But the audience can sense that he won’t succeed there either. Miso’s last gift to him is a sketchbook, urging him not to stop drawing. He replies that he no longer wishes to pursue that dream. After a final warm kiss, Miso hits the road again with her luggage.

Her last host is likely the wealthiest of her friends, yet unhappy in her marriage. As the story nears its end, she looks through old photographs of their youth—singing, dancing, and ‘turning the room white’ with smoke. All her friends gather for a funeral, likely for an older relative of Miso’s abductor, who did not invite her.

They start reminiscing about the past, and Miso’s name comes up. As one jokes about whether she is ‘making Miso soup’ somewhere, the frame shifts to a city bridge. A woman’s silhouette, her hair now fully white, appears for a moment. She once again walks into a bar, orders whiskey, and steps out to the smoking corner to light her favorite cigarette.

In the final frame, a red tent is seen glowing beneath the bridge, with towers and skyscrapers looming above it. The silhouette curls up inside, signaling that Miso has finally made a home for herself—amidst the busy crowd of ‘normal’ people in the city. She has finally found her own microhabitat.

The Meaning

The director, Jeon Go-Woon, wrote the story herself. It was her directorial debut and the first film produced by her own production house, Gwanghwamun Cinema.

From the CGV Arthouse Award at the 22nd Busan International Film Festival to the Tiger Cage Award for Best Feature Film at the 17th New York Asian Film Festival, it went on to win one award after another. Esom, who played Miso in the film, also won several Best Actress awards.

It is still noteworthy that Go-Woon chose a subject unlikely to dominate the box office but certain to resonate with an artistic audience. In fact, many artists might well feel grateful to her for making Microhabitat. While it is a one-of-a-kind story, it echoes and reflects many of their own lives.

And it calls for that sensitivity—to watch Miso’s story without judgment, without labeling her a psychopath, and without questioning why she chose this life or why she seems detached from reality.

The plot offers no salvation for Miso, nor does it explicitly critique capitalism. It simply states a sad truth: this is the fate of some who once dreamed of being singers, poets, or artists. For many in the artistic tribe, it is inevitable. Many of them die unattended, with no one around them—just like Eleanor Rigby. It’s the grim reality of being an artist.

Go-Woon said Miso is a version of herself, a courageous woman who dared to make choices she “couldn’t dare” herself during her own period of struggle. 

It is also a staunchly feminist film. She wanted to portray a woman who drinks and smokes in a different light. The stereotype associated with them in Korea is that they are always “wild or violent.” Miso is neither. Go-Woon described her as “the modern version of the main character from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1905 novel, A Little Princess.”

The film offers no further message. Whether Miso ever wished to return to music remains unanswered. While officially billed as a romantic comedy, it probably doesn’t aim to provoke laughter when Miso’s rice spills from her bag. The audience is free to interpret it as they wish.

The film resonates most with a niche audience who understand why it was meant to be a sigh and nothing more. To that end, it serves them faithfully, with every ounce of empathy. 

Microhabitat is a tribute to the artistic soul—something ‘normal’ people may always find strange.