Dull Writing and Insane Characters

While there are some Horror movies that have alluded to various religions, and have done them successfully (The Wailing), "Sleep" seems to presume the audience is already familiar and sympathetic with Shamanism and Buddhism, including their esoteric rituals and practices without any justification or explanation. As a result, those unfamiliar with these practices will find the character's behavior off-putting and their responses bizarre. For example, in one instance, the priestess starts ringing her bell loudly to deter the supposed demon possessing the husband. However, she also approaches the baby and starts to violently ring a bell against the baby's ears causing it to wail. Both the ML and FL, who are apparently skeptics at this point in the movie, don't consider at any point to perhaps engage this shenanigan without the baby? Rather, the delirious and sleep deprived FL becomes more convinced by the shaman's antics, while the ML gets slightly agitated and shields the baby, but does not assume that the unruly practice might either traumatize or harm the baby. At this point, the realism of the story is lost for me because none characters are acting as how normal people and purported skeptics would: bothered and protective.
When we get to final segment of the movie, there is an interesting dilemma of whether the protagonist is suffering from paranoia or whether her husband is genuinely possessed. While interesting, it was, unfortunately, poorly executed. To convince the demon to leave, the protagonist not only kills the neighbor's dog, but kidnaps the neighbor and threatens to drill a hole in the neighbor's skull. The neighbor's response to all this violent acts against her? That the demon should stop posessing the husband...
Initially, I thought, perhaps the neighbor was simply pretending to go along with the protagonist's hysteria to preserve her own life. But then, the neighbor begins to converse with the husband as if he were really her dad, begs him to leave, and promises she would perform ancestral rites for him. There is not a single indication that the neighbor is performing an act, but rather we see both the neighbor and the protagonist believing the husband is possessed, insistent, and seemingly justifying FL's previously fanatic behavior to expunge the demon.
For any rational person, whether religious or not, this is incredibly abnormal behavior and dialogue. Suppose you were a devout Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. and someone kidnapped you because the kidnapper believed your parent's spirit/demon was haunting her or her family member. Wouldn't the initial reaction always be: This person is insane; please stop her? Wouldn't you try to reason with the kidnapper when given the opportunity to? Apparently, not in this movie.
And without surprise, it turns out the husband was actually possessed..! Thus, the implied message in the ending is: everything was justified and peace has returned... Yikes.
There are other unconvincing behaviors in the movie as well, such as the wife's wanting to ignore and put up with her husband's strangeness because of an arbitrary signpost that he crafted: "Together, we can overcome everything!" Ah yes, that's why I should allow my husband near my baby even though he accidentally killed my fur-baby because, apparently, we can overcome this situation together by jeopardizing my baby's life? No pain, no gain; no risk, no reward! I genuinely don't understand what sort of rationale, if any, was in this writer's mind when creating this nonsense.
It's a shame because I think the movie would had a lot more potential if it went with a psychological than a supernatural direction, or if it was not written by a religious extremist, since the possibility that the husband acted as a demon (for he is an actor, though merely an extra) in the end could have been a perfectly tenable theory. That is, until it is squandered and crushed by every other character's reaction.
All in all, the writing is mediocre, the story was decent, the acting was great, and it had its thrilling moments. It is a fun movie, but it is far from outstanding.

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Inconsistent.

The appeal of the show is that it's a deductive mystery. Mafia is essentially a whodunit mystery. The mystery should be the primary focus and the high school drama and romance should be secondary. After all, that is how the show was marketed.

However, after the male protagonist is killed off by a nervous lynch, to preserve the romance, the writers revive him. But by doing so, the dynamics of the game changes drastically. The announcer conveniently no longer announces the roles of those who are killed, the doctor can revive anyone even if they weren't killed in the Night, and the viewers no longer face the thrill of danger for the protagonists because we now know the writers will simply bring them back to life. This show, in a single moment, destroyed the sanctity of all its genre. It is a mystery that has lost its logical credibility, a horror and thriller without a genuine threat of death, a high school romance that isn't quite romantic, and a high school drama without stakes—where trivial conflicts unreasonably lead to death and murder.

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Forceful and Forgettable

The recipe for this film: random conflict for the sole purpose to set up and induce meaningless plot twist after twist; a sprinkle of symbolism here and there; various graphic acts with a touch of unusual characters in equally bizarre costumes; all neatly packaged with a comical, voyeuristic homoerotic act.
With some reflection, it is clear to us that each ingredient was tactfully manufactured to artificially arouse the audience. Yet, keener and more experienced eyes will not succumb to such parlor tricks. They will notice despite how engaging and provocative some moments were, how contrived, unnatural, and ungratifying the screenplay was to induce viewers to the various twists, detracting from the overall storytelling experience. The movie was a boisterous performance to posturize Park's chops as an experienced director and a film enthusiast, but not as a storyteller. All in all, The Handmaiden is a far cry from Park Chan Wook's earlier notable works, which seamlessly showed originality and a honest exploration of life's gravitas.

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Social Commentary or Mental Health?

If you want a drama to accurately represent and inform viewers about mental illness, then this is not for you. If you want reasonable characters and complex dialogue, then this is not for you. If you want mature characters who are expected to act their age, then this is not for you. If you enjoy a watered-down and amateur screenplay about human interactions that also deals with mental issues, and tries to hide its flaws with overbearing moralizing, occasional comic relief, and a flurry of needless romance, then this is right up your alley!

Although the shows has a stellar start with interesting safety facts and quirks about working in a psychiatric facility, that is about the extent of where the facts regarding mental illness are informative. At one instance, the show briefly mentions the scientific and physical (neurochemical/anatomical) issues about mental illnesses, but by the very next scene, it completely dispels or forgets the physical and tries to mainly attribute the cause to mostly or solely societal pressures and injustices. In other words, it is the overbearing mother, the despotic manager, or the predatory capitalistic society that is causing our mental health crisis. And the universal remedy is that people just need to take their meds and have others accept them; or, for those suffering from severe OCD, fall in love and be cured! This is a completely naive picture that a introductory course in psychiatry will quickly dispel. To make matters worse, the "prescriptions" aren't scientifically backed advice but are seemingly a mixture of the writer's dogmatisms, sociological assumptions, and attempts at psychoanalysis. The patients become the victims of the overused trope: "society is the problem." Therefore, society must change; not the patients. Once their external environment changes, the patients, too, magically begin to improve.

The drama reeks of victim mentality. It is constantly upbraided by passive aggressive characters, and the writer's constant virtue signaling, as if it's profound knowledge, becomes nauseating very quickly. What this drama portrays for the "mentally ill" are those who have had their worldviews, ambitions, goals, and desires destroyed by societal pressures. Then, it throws in various mental illnesses ad-hoc. These may describe various cases, as traumatic experiences can trigger underlying issues or make one more susceptible to developing mental illness, but the environment is rarely the cause. Someone down on his luck can experience bouts of depression without suffering from clinical depression. Someone may find difficulty trying to focus due to a stressful environment without suffering from ADHD. Someone may lapse into a fit of rage without suffering from anger management. Unique experiences can naturally cause you to react outside of your control especially if you are unfamiliar to them, but they do not force your physical make-up to change and leave you in an inelastic, neurochemically impaired state. Consequently, traumatic experiences do not describe all cases of mental illnesses, and especially for ones requiring long-term stays at a psychiatric ward.

The mentally ill isn't exclusive to members of society who have had difficult and restricted lives or those who have failed at their chances for glory. They exist for all types of people and can happen to anyone, anytime: with or without reason, poor or rich, successful or unsuccessful, sociable or reclusive, physically fit or unfit, etc. Like, seriously. What will the writer claim was the catalyst for John Nash's schizophrenia and psychosis? Too much success? For possessing too much mathematical prowess? Or, Robin William's depression? Too great of a comedian? For possessing too much fame and wit?

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Existentialism Gone Amok.

The drama portrays interesting apocalyptic scenarios, using philosophical undertones to convey its point.
We can see appropriate criticisms against the religious zealots and the tyrannical priest class abusing its authority to gain control over the mass, a retelling of Nietzsche's biting critique on religion in his works such as 'On the Genealogy of Morality' or 'The Antichrist.' We also receive a neat existentialist prescription: Don't rely on man, rely on yourself and empirical data; face the helms of danger with courage; settle matters from your own choice and own self-governance! Sounds great on paper. The issue?

None of the existentialist philosophers who encouraged us to exact our will encountered a supernatural floating head that damned people to Hell nor 3 bootleg grey Hulks eradicating people one by one! All of them presupposed that God did not exist, so the natural recourse is to take matters into our own hands. Although a slight distinction, that slight distinction makes for a understandable and reasonable argument into one that is completely unreasonable. In other words, the drama conveys the most radical idea: Even if God or supernatural beings exist, we ought to take matters into our own hands.

The antidote against an unstoppable supernatural force is cute, but flimsy. It is as if we encountered an encroaching catastrophic tsunami with nowhere to hide, and the writer confidently assures us we need to face it directly for it is our only option. Fueled by his inspiring words, we brace ourselves and await the natural behemoth. Any sensible person, running away from the crashing tides, dies and perishes. However, we, until the brink of death, face forward and are rewarded as a portion of the waves split passing by us. We remain undamaged for we did not despair! We have done it. Just as the writer said, we willed it and accomplished our goal. The great irony? We relied on a divine force to part the seas to save ourselves from this dilemma despite our proclamation to overcome the situation by ourselves.

Similarly, despite the cute prescription of the show, the characters rely on the almighty writer to rescue them. The protagonists mindlessly retort their individualistic beliefs, yet escape their perilous circumstances with the writer's convenient interventions; a direct contradiction of the confused theme declared by the drama.

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