Are you truly free now?

Seon-yeong is a homemaker who has been married for seventeen years. Her husband, Professor Jang, and daughter, Yuri, are her entire world; she has long forgotten a life of her own. Yet Professor Jang often returns home at dawn, leaving household matters aside because of his busy schedule, while high-school student Yuri wants only to be alone after returning from ballet lessons. Seon-yeong gradually realizes that there seems to be no place left for her in the family.

Hoping for a change of mood, she meets old school friends, but leaves feeling diminished beside their apparent success. Wandering the streets alone at night, she notices a carousel music box in a shop window and remembers dreams she had long forgotten. Like the fantasies everyone once had about carousels as children, she realizes she has kept her longing for childhood dreams intact.

The next day, holding a business card from a school friend, she lingers outside the studio where that friend works, wondering whether she might begin a new life there. Her friend spots her and welcomes her warmly. Saying that she must first change her appearance if she wants to work there, the friend gives homemaker Seon-yeong a complete makeover. Transformed into a career woman with her friend’s help, she goes to work for the first time in seventeen years, feeling both frightened and excited.

Will Seon-yeong find true freedom? What does our era ask of women? Is it asking too much for a woman to want both work and love? Through her, we ask ourselves: Are we truly free now?