A Good Lawyer’s Wife

Ju Yeong-jak is a successful lawyer who works long hours, leaving little time for family life. His wife, Eun Ho-jeong, has given up her dancing dreams to be a 'good lawyer's wife' while running the home and teaching dance at a local gym. The couple's relationship is tense as both navigate dissatisfaction and hidden affairs.

Ju Chang-geun, an alcoholic with a terminal liver condition, dies after years of illness. His wife Hong Byeong-han reveals she has been having an affair with an old grade-school friend and says she plans to marry him. Yeong-jak and Ho-jeong respond with a mix of shock and resignation as family secrets surface.

Meanwhile, Yeong-jak is not satisfied by his wife's behavior and begins an affair with Kim Yeon, a younger artist and former model. The affair adds another layer of tension to an already fragile marriage. The two lovers keep their relationship discreet for now.

Shin Ji-woon, a teenage neighbor, is caught peeping on Ho-jeong as she undresses through her apartment window. At first angry, Ho-jeong decides to fulfill his peeping wish by allowing him to watch her do nude gymnastics through the window. The moment alters their dynamic and foreshadows further entanglements.

Ji-woon bikes after Ho-jeong and even barges into her dance class, intruding into her private world. She then follows him to the cinema, where they talk and she tests his boundaries with a teasing demeanor. The evolving dynamic signals a dangerous closeness between them.

After Ho-jeong learns of her husband's affair, she tells Ji-woon to follow her and takes him to an abandoned dance hall. Without exchanging a word, she initiates their encounter, and the episode underscores her desperation and the ethical peril of their liaison. The scene foreshadows the consequences of unchecked desire.

Ji-woon’s father discovers the affair and informs Yeong-jak, unaware that Yeong-jak appears emotionally detached from his wife's actions. The revelation highlights the widening distance between the spouses. It deepens the sense that the couple's private misdeeds will reverberate publicly.

A postman named Sung Ji-ru, who needs to drive to keep his job, asks Yeong-jak for help keeping his secret safe. Yeong-jak promises to use his legal connections to shield him from consequences if he hides the fact that a woman was in the car. This arrangement ties Yeong-jak to a dangerous chain of deceit.

During a tense turn of events, the postman abducts Yeong-jak's adopted son and throws him from a building, killing him, before taking his own life. The act devastates Yeong-jak and Ho-jeong, turning private transgressions into a public tragedy. Authorities struggle to piece together the motives behind the murder-suicide.

Yeong-jak and Ho-jeong are crushed by their son's death and the moral ruin surrounding their marriage. Ho-jeong blames Yeong-jak for initiating the chain of events that led to the tragedy. The couple's relationship deteriorates under the weight of guilt and loss.

In a final twist, Ho-jeong discovers she is pregnant and reveals that Yeong-jak cannot be the father, telling him that he is 'out of the picture.' The revelation leaves the couple's future unresolved and raises questions about responsibility and belonging. The ending is deliberately opaque about what comes next for either of them.

The film situates personal tragedies within a larger historical frame, showing how the Korean War's legacy haunts families. Yeong-jak's father and grandfather escaped from the North, and the grandfather's young female companion remained hidden from other relatives, only to be discovered months later. This backdrop deepens the sense of inherited guilt and the cycles of tragedy that recur through generations.