No Other Choice Fails to Capture the Downsides of Downsizing

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Now is the perfect time for a film based on Donald E. Westlake’s stark 1997 novel, The Ax, which keenly examines how downsizing can strip people of their humanity. Unfortunately, No Other Choice, the adaptation Korean director Park Chan-wook has long wanted to make, doesn’t quite live up to the novel’s sharp, unsettling quality. While movies and books offer different experiences, sometimes knowing the source material creates expectations that are hard to ignore. Despite Park’s talent – his 2003 film Oldboy is a brilliant, dramatic achievement – No Other Choice feels both too understated and too reliant on slapstick comedy, ultimately missing the mark. It’s a wasted opportunity, even with skilled filmmaking behind it.

Park Chan-wook takes the basic idea from Patricia Highsmith’s story – a fired worker calmly and coldly kills the four men who are his rivals for a job – and reimagines it as a series of fortunate accidents that allow the main character, Man-su (played by Lee Byung-hun), to commit one crime after another. The film begins in the summer, with Man-su grilling eels in the backyard of his beautiful home. These eels are a thank-you gift from the paper mill where he’s worked loyally for 25 years. He’s surrounded by his wife, Miri (Son Ye-jin), his children – teenage son Si-one (Woo Seung Kim) and younger daughter Ri-one (So Yul Choi) – and their two adorable golden retrievers. Ri-one, who is neurodivergent and a talented cellist, has a special bond with the dogs. At this moment, Man-su feels completely content with his comfortable, middle-class life.

Man-su is in for a rude awakening. Just when he thinks a generous gift of expensive eels is a nice gesture, he finds out he’s being laid off. Finding another job proves impossible given his age and experience. Meanwhile, his wife, Miri, takes drastic measures to cut costs, rehoming their dogs and suggesting they sell the family home – a house Man-su worked hard to reclaim after losing it once before. To make matters worse, a job interview with a company he admires goes terribly, and he’s publicly embarrassed by a former colleague who would have been his superior. Driven to desperation, Man-su begins to plot. He decides to eliminate his main competition for the job – the kind-hearted Sijo, who is currently working as a shoe salesman, and the struggling engineer, Bummo, who spends his days drinking. He also plans to get rid of the arrogant Sun-chul, who treated him so poorly.

Man-su’s initial murder attempt is hilariously chaotic, but his second is disturbingly effective. However, the over-the-top silliness of the first attempt – complete with slipping in mud, a snakebite, and an angry woman with a gun (Yeom Hye-ran) – throws the movie off balance and it never quite finds its footing. Lee, known for his role in Squid Game and previously in Park’s 2000 film Joint Security Area, delivers a strong performance early on as a man struggling with his circumstances. We see him in counseling with other middle-aged men facing similar feelings of shame and powerlessness, highlighting the damaging effects of capitalist pressures – a trend likely to worsen with the rise of AI.

However, the complex plot of No Other Choice overshadows the story’s powerful emotional core. While beautifully shot by Kim Woo-hyung with stylish camera work and transitions, the film lacks the poetic touch Park Chan-wook is known for. Those familiar with his previous films – like Oldboy, the visually stunning The Handmaiden (2016), or the recent Decision to Leave – will recognize he’s capable of far more, especially given the film’s themes about artificial intelligence and the value of human work.

In his 1997 novel, Westlake voiced these concerns through Burke Devore, an ordinary man who loses his job and is driven to desperate measures. Devore muses on how the promise of automation always seemed positive, but he always wondered what would become of the people whose simple jobs were taken over by machines – how would they earn a living? While the book, No Other Choice, hints at Devore’s despair and Westlake’s anxieties about the future, it doesn’t fully explore them. Now that the future Westlake imagined is here, the book’s commentary feels insufficient. Instead of a powerful outcry or even dark humor, it offers only a clever, but ultimately inadequate, acknowledgement of the dangers.

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2025-12-25 16:11