Mija (veteran actress Yun Jung-hee) is a beautiful woman in her sixties who moves gracefully through life, contemplating a trivial daily routine that is ill-suited to her refined persona. With elegance and a dash of eccentricity, Mija takes care of her ungrateful grandson Wook (Lee David) and makes a living by cleaning house for an elderly man who, though paralyzed by a stroke, still responds to her charm with bouts of drug-induced arousal.

On a whim, Mija enrolls in a poetry class at the local cultural centre and begins a personal quest to find the perfect words to describe her feelings. However, she’s plagued by the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, and struggles with new vocabulary and the challenges of the creative process. When her world is turned upside down by the discovery of a monstrous crime, it is Mija’s unique and touching poetry that allows her to defy the weight of shame and distance herself from a painful proximity to violence.

Jeong-hie Yun gives a nearly perfect performance in Poetry, as touching as it is inspiring.

Writer and director Chang-dong Lee's film is moving without ever stooping to melodrama; Yun is the main reason why. As a woman in her 60s who, facing failing health and a fraying family, finds solace in her love of language, she is outstanding.

...

Lee is patient in telling the story, not afraid to linger a bit. It's effective in the portrayal of Mija, who does not hurry through her life as she faces its challenges, but works steadily to meet them. And Yun's performance is genuinely beautiful, a haunting expression of life, of its disappointments and its possibilities, rendered in a way that befits the title.

Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 2011