Vera Farmiga is the best American actress you've never heard of. She was slightly more than window dressing as the only woman in "The Departed," but she turned in one of the decade's best performances as a recovering addict in "Down to the Bone" and tears into the meaty role provided for her by writer-director Gina Kim in "Never Forever."
Set in New York, the film stars Farmiga as Sophie, a white woman married to Andrew (David L. McInnis), a Korean American businessman who might or might not be infertile. After Andrew's father dies, he becomes suicidal because he has not been able to have children, and he's under familial pressure to do so.
Sophie's choice: to get pregnant with the help of an illegal Korean immigrant (South Korean star Jung-Woo Ha) and pass the child off as her husband's, thus saving their marriage. The sex is graphic; at times uncomfortable, at times thrilling. What could have been soap opera is instead thoughtfully and subtly presented by Kim, a bold storyteller who drew notice with a festival favorite, "Invisible Light," in 2004. Korean-born, New York-based and a former Harvard professor to boot, Kim is a filmmaker who shouldn't just be on the rise but shooting through the film world's glass ceiling.
—G. Allen Johnson (April 12, 2008)