1 hour ago
2
In the new Korean Netflix thriller The Art Of Sarah, a woman tries to protect the ultra-luxurious life she has lied her way into, while a police detective unwraps all of the layers she has built up. It all starts with a homicide.
THE ART OF SARAH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A woman walks around a launch party for a handbag line from Boudoir, a top fashion brand. As snow starts to fall outside, we hear her in voiceover say, “Truth, like light, blinds us. Falsehood, on the other hand, is like a beautiful sunset that enhances everything.”
The Gist: When a woman’s body is found under a sewer grating, police detective Park Mu-gyeong (Lee Jun-hyuk) investigates. There is no ID on the Jane Doe, and her face has been bashed in, but with her body is a rare, designer handbag.
When the handbag is traced by its serial number, it’s linked to Jung Yeo-jin (Park Bo-kyung), the CEO of Nox, a drugstore cosmetic brand, who had lent the bag to a friend. When she is brought in to identify the body, she identifies Sarah Kim (Shin Hye-sun) via the tattoo on her foot. She lets out an anguished cry, then talks to Park about how Sarah got the bag.
Yeo-jin launches into the story of how she met Sarah, who toted a suitcase full of cash into a designer handbag boutique she was visiting. She claimed to be the Asian director of a European couture designer named Boudoir, and the way she lived proved to be attractive to the striving Yeo-jin. Sarah even managed to get Yeo-jin to invest in a Boudoir-Nox partnership.
After the mostly praiseful story, Detective Park goes back and looks at the footage, thinking something about the story wasn’t quite right. He also looks at the footage of Yeo-jin as she wailed in the morgue after IDing Sarah. As more information comes in, Park realizes that “Sarah Kim” was an invention. Who is this woman, then?
Photo: Kim Eun jeong/NetflixWhat Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Art Of Sarah is in the family of other dramas about people living fake lives, like Imposters and Inventing Anna.
Our Take: There are a lot of layers to The Art Of Sarah, not the least of which is that the body that was supposed to be Sarah Kim is likely not whom they found, despite the foot tattoo that should have made the ID definitive. Even the story about her that Jung Yeo-jin tells Detective Park in the first episode has holes and confusing parts to it.
Where, for instance, did she get the billions of won in cash that she used to buy those handbags? Why has no one heard of Boudoir but just seemed to accept its arrival? And how did Sarah have so much money when she wasn’t even the company’s CEO.
Of course, it all turns out to be a mirage, and how Detective Park unravels Sarah’s origins and her long con will be fascinating to watch. First, we need to see just where Sarah came from and how she built this life. Then we need to see if she’s actually dead or not, and who in her universe she’s drawn into her lies. Finally, there’s the whole idea of whether the con has become Sarah’s truth at this point, given how much she’s lived that lie over a long period of time.
Photo: Kim Eun jeong/NetflixPerformance Worth Watching: Shin Hye-sun is dynamic as Sarah Kim, who even convinced us that she’s living the good life.
Sex And Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Detective Park finds out that “Sarah Kim” is a fake identity, and looks at the case board with a new perspective.
Sleeper Star: A whole show could be built around the desire of Park Bo-kyung’s character Jung Yeo-jin to be a part of Korea’s elite.
Most Pilot-y Line: Some of the details about Jung Yeo-jin’s investment in Boudoir are a little confusing, but where she got the money to invest is crystal clear.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Art Of Sarah looks like it’s going to be an intriguing, multilayered mystery about a woman who built a luxurious life from a complex lie and the cop that figures those lies out.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
English (US)