In Soulmate, we are made privy to the sacrosanct sweetness of the friendship between two girls, Ahn Mi-so and Go Ha-eun growing up on Jeju Island. As we join the girls in their journey of becoming, we see their friendship grow boisterously even amid the unendurable silences and tribulations. Despite all the storms it bears, the rewards of what the girls continued to share from childhood into young adulthood are greater than romantic love. Ahn Mi-so is invited by a gallery curator to witness a hyper-realistic portrait of her younger self. The gallery curator gently coaxes Mi-so to help her get in touch with the artist, Ha-eun. Mi-so claims that Ha-eun is a childhood acquaintance but nothing more than that. The gallery curator is adamant, as she has done her homework on both of their backgrounds. She shows Mi-so the blog that Ha-eun had created, which has enough proof that they were far closer than Mi-so is letting on. The blog, called ‘Summer Milky Way,’ has personal narratives detailing the bond between the girls. While on her way out, Mi-so is held back by a guy who again asks about Ha-eun’s whereabouts. Mi-so replied curtly that she has lost touch with her friend. The guy, Ham Jin-woo, seems to know Mi-so and Ha-eun from their days in school.
Spoilers Ahead
What Does The Friendship Between Ahn Mi-So And Go Ha-Eun Look Like?
In flashback, we see how the friendship between the two was forged. Ahn Mi-so is a defiant rebel. On her first day at school, she runs out the backdoor of the class and creates a spectacle. This defiant act is what perhaps makes her so inviting to young Ha-eun, who is more timid in temperament. Ha-eun is scared of heights and, it turns out, she is scared to follow her dreams too. In turn, Hae-eun’s name seems inviting to Mi-so. She loves that her new friend has a name that literally translates to ‘Summer Milky Way’. Ha-eun’s parents observe how the girls complement each other perfectly. But Ha-eun notices that her friend, whose name literally translates to ‘smile,’ does not smile too often. We realise that Mi-so has had a rather unfavourable childhood caused by her father’s transferable job. Whenever she attempts to find some peace, her tender life is thrown into a whirlpool. Her life is marked by uncertainty due to the constant and imposed moving. The girls’ distinct personalities became even more underscored in their teens. While Ha-eun secretly honed her skills at hyper realistic sketching, Mi-so remained true to her highly imaginative, part-realism, part-fantasy art form. Mi-so’s art form is an extension of her zeal for living. So profound is her sense of living that she proclaims that she wants to die at the age of twenty-seven like her icon, Janis Joplin.
How Does Love Change The Equation Between The Girls?
On Ha-eun’s birthday, Mi-so blabbers about her dream of a world tour and Ha-eun is happy to lend her her ear, both literally and figuratively. While Mi-so exuberantly details her plans of visiting museums, learning to paint, and getting to Vladivostok on a ferry, Ha-eun’s reticence speaks volumes. Ha-eun has no such dreams to weave but only familial wishes to follow. Her father’s wish for Ha-eun to become a teacher takes the centrestage of her life, pushing her talent of sketching to the backseat. Ha-eun confesses that she likes a boy but does not know too much about him. Witnessing her friend’s seriousness in pursuing him, Mi-so finds the boy and has a rough chat with him. Jin-woo reciprocates Ha-eun’s feelings, and a new romance sets off. Soon the three of them– Mi-so, Ha-eun, and Jin-woo are out on adventures. Once, during their adventures inside a den in the thick of the forest, Mi-so and Jin-woo grow very close and share a kiss in Ha-eun’s absence. After this, Mi-so starts fizzling away slowly, till she becomes a distant dream for Ha-eun. Both of them realise that their bond would not remain the same. When the time comes for Mi-so to sail away, Ha-eun is left wounded as she notices Jin-woo’s necklace adorning her neck.
What causes the girls to grow distant over time?
The communication between the girls grows sparse over the years. Ha-eun imagines Mi-so living her dream life, traveling to her dream destinations, when the reality is acutely disparate. Mi-so has a hard time making ends meet, sometimes working overtime at hotels in unbearable conditions. Mi-so soon returns and takes Ha-eun along with her. They walk till their feet practically fall off and eat till their bellies ache. However, the point of rupture comes when Mi-so has to forcibly stay the night at a luxurious hotel on Ha-eun’s demands. Later, Ha-eun coaxes her to have dinner at a high-end restaurant. Mi-so realises that the meal being on her would be way out of her normal expenditure. So she entertains a group of men with her bartending skills and wins an artisanal wine bottle in exchange. This makes Ha-eun livid. Following the ruckus, Mi-so and Ha-eun are left with the discomfort of their internal turmoil regarding their truthfulness to each other.
Did Mi-so really kiss Jin-woo?
The entire episode inside the den reveals itself like the unraveling of a major mystery. All this while the narrative flows in a way that the spectators are forced to believe that the rift between the girls was a given due to the kiss between Mi-so and Jin-woo. However, digging half inside the story we realize that the flow of recounting their past memories is unreliable. There is a point when the story shows a showdown between Ha-eun and Mi-so after Ha-eun finds Mi-so in an inebriated state in Jin-woo’s apartment. With the death of her lover leaving her in shambles, Mi-so has nowhere to go and Jin-woo offers her support. Ha-eun, however, brings up Mi-so’s deeds from their teenage days. Here, the flashback of the den episode reveals Mi-so’s truth. It was Jin-woo who initiated the kiss. However, Mi-so remained faithful to her friend. She bit his tongue and kicked him to remind him of her boundaries. She asked for Jin-woo’s lucky charm necklace which had kept him safe from all harm. She demanded it so that the charm gets transferred to her and kept her safe at least until she turned twenty-seven. The careful concealment of the broad picture paints a different story for both the spectators and Ha-eun. Through Ha-eun’s ill-informed lens, we read Mi-so as the one having unrequited feelings for Jin-woo and pursuing them illicitly by betraying her best friend.
Is Mi-so truthful about not knowing Ha-eun’s whereabouts?
After showing Ha-eun’s journey towards self-discovery that she undertakes after calling off her marriage with Jin-woo, the film then switches back to the present day. Jin-woo has come looking for Mi-so in search of answers to Ha-eun’s disappearance. Her phone rings in front of Jin-woo and we see it is a call from Ha-eun. Jin-woo waits with bated breath. However, much to his surprise, a little schoolgirl with a badge that reads ‘Ahn Ha-eun’ steps out of a school bus. The film then resorts to its chain of flashbacks where we see Ha-eun pregnant with her child, arriving at Seoul looking for her friend. Ha-eun confesses that she always knew Mi-so suppressed her feelings for Jin-woo and prioritized their friendship. This was also the reason why Mi-so drifted away so soon. Ha-eun has returned to leave her child with Mi-so and pursue her dreams freely. So, after she gave birth to her daughter, Ha-eun disappeared to live the life that Mi-so raved about. The little child before us is in fact the daughter of Ha-eun and Jin-woo. This is the story that Mi-so narrates to Jin-woo.
Is Ha-eun alive or dead?
Turns out that the story that Mi-so recounts to Jin-woo is not true. Ha-eun had tragically passed away due to blood loss following her daughter’s birth. It was Ha-eun whose life was tragically cut short at just 27, leaving Mi-so behind. Mi-so becomes the lone mother of the child and names her after her best friend. One day, while sifting through Ha-eun’s belongings, Mi-so uncovers the huge canvas where Ha-eun had started sketching a hyper-realistic portrait of Mi-so. However, it is unfinished. Mi-so takes it upon herself to finish her friend’s unfinished work. Over time, Mi-so has acquired the skill to sketch hyper-realistically. Therefore, she manages to seamlessly wear Ha-eun’s artistic shoes, like the piece that perfectly fits the puzzle. It is Mi-so who keeps Ha-eun alive even after her death by concealing the truth of her death. When the gallery curator offers Ha-eun to be their in-house artist unknowingly, Mi-so writes back pretending to be Ha-eun with a rejection. However, she agrees to display the huge portrait. The portrait in honor of the missing artist is allowed to be at the center stage. In the end, Mi-so imagines Ha-eun to be trekking all alone in one of the iciest regions of Russia. The end is a note that reads that Mi-so would keep Ha-eun’s memories and newfound zeal for life as a way to honor her and keep her alive.Â