Mi-ja lives in a small country town with a river running through it. She’s over 60 but she looks young for her age and she likes to dress well. Her hats may seem a bit eccentric but they correspond to Mi-ja’s fondness for beauty and poetry. Her interest in writing verse leads her to enroll in a poetry course at the local community center, and she becomes a devoted student. Her new hobby doesn’t prevent her from making a living taking care of a disabled old man, and she also looks after an adolescent grandson who lives with her. He causes Mi-ja few problems, that is until it comes out that he’s mixed up in the suicide of one of his classmates. Mi-ja finds out that reality isn’t as beautiful as she’d like to believe. "What does it mean to write poetry in an age when poetry is dying?” asks director Lee Chang-dong, whose film garnered Best Screenplay at the Cannes festival in 2010. The character of Mi-ja, whose story was written by the filmmaker himself, was played by legendary 1960s Korean film star Yun Jung-hee, who returned to film after a long hiatus.