Of the three Hong Sang-soo films I’ve now seen, Like You Know It All is by far the most accessible in terms of its surface-level genre. It’s essentially a comedy, one that taps a vein not dissimilar to the Comedy of Un-comfortability that’s so in fashion Stateside, while maintaining a consciousness about ego and the weakness of best intentions in the face of desire that grounds the humor in something hopelessly sad.

The film plays out in two major sections. Ku, a filmmaker, travels to a suburb to be on the jury at a film festival. He’s the most famous guy in town … until his former lackey-turned-star director shows up and attracts the attention of porn star who wants to launch a legit acting career. Ku habitually drinks by night and sleeps through movies by day. One night, he runs into an old friend, who he comically dismisses as “an alcoholic”, and after the friend claims that his new wife is his “soulmate” and salvation, the two end up drunkenly going back to the friend’s house, where Ku manages to offend the “soulmate” before passing out. Later, Ku travels to an island to present a lecture at a university. He hooks up with his former mentor for another long night of drinking, then meets the mentor’s own “soulmate” wife… who happens to be Ku’s ex-girlfriend. All throughout, Ku sits, usually quietly, while his drunk companions expound on the meaning of life and the restorative powers of love. Like You Know it All ultimately plays out like a spoof of the life of an independent filmmaker, with the festival circuit and speaking gigs as pit stops to both pump up the ego, and force crises of conscience.

This may count as a spoiler, so watch out: Like You Know it All occasionally seamlessly slips from “real” space into dream sequences, and though Hong’s use of this technique won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has seen his last film, Night and Day, here the dreams are less ambiguous, and less elegantly staged. In general, the visual style of Know It seems almost incidental compared to the careful minimalism of Woman on the Beach and Night and Day. As he’s apparently cutting right to the chase with his imagery, Hong seems to also cut the fat off of his essential themes. When Ku tells a woman he’s attempting to seduce that if she’d only acquiese, he’d “stop despising myself [for being] a human one minute, an animal the next,” Hong’s essentially putting the thesis of all of his films in the mouth of his main character. Paradoxically, even as Like You Know it All seems consciously designed to play to a crowd more than any of the filmmaker’s previous films — it’s barely two hours long, it’s overtly hilarious — it doesn’t seem to play as well to those who don’t have a familiarity with Hong’s filmography, who don’t understand where and how he’s poking himself in the ribs.

Before the film’s evening premiere at the Palais Stephanie, the filmmaker took the stage and welcomed the crowd, in English, with a kind of apology: ”I know you have many other things in life to do. Thank you for your choice.” Even that slight statement feels ironic and self-reflexive, coming before the presentation of a film in which the filmmaker’s alter ego falls asleep watching two films at a festival, and otherwise devotes much of his time at said festival to naps, drinks, and accidentally destroying old friendships. A colleague commented that Like You Know it All is to Hong Sang-soo what Deconstructing Harry was to Woody Allen, and he’s not wrong — right down to the constant, comic inquiries into the nature of existence, Know It is, like Allen’s 90s highlight, a self-reflexive farce about self-hatred, which posits the work of art as a safe, even idyllic space for the projection of one’s desires, deficiencies and demons, where you can be honest about what a louse you are and somehow be rewarded for it. What’s up for debate is whether anyone outside of Hong Sang-soo’s devoted but tiny clutch of fans will find it rewarding.