Upamanyu Biswas
Netflix’s Korean science fiction film, ‘Wonderland,’ explores a world where people continue to stay in touch with their deceased or death-ridden loved ones through a special simulation service known as Wonderland. The narrative taps into the estranged relationship between Bai Li, a dead fund manager, and her daughter, Jia, as well as the distant relationship between a flight attendant, Jeong-in, and her comatose lover, Tae-Joo, whom she envisions in space through the titular service app’s interface.
As the film nears its conclusion, the lines between reality and simulation begin to get blurred as each character – real or AI – tries to process their grief in various ways. For Jeong-in, her perfect connection with AI Tae-joo becomes disrupted once the real Tae-joo resurfaces in her life, albeit seeming less like himself. Meanwhile, Bai Li has to rectify her past mistakes with Jia – prioritizing her job over her daughter’s needs – even if it means achieving the impossible and traversing across Wonderland’s borders to make her point! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Wonderland Plot Synopsis
After years of working around the world as a fund manager, a dying Bai Li avails the services of Wonderland, expressing regret for her inability to connect with her daughter Jia over the years. She proposes wanting to grow closer to her as an AI in Wonderland’s simulation, asking to be an archaeologist, which was her dream once upon a time. Soon after her passing, AI Bai Li begins conversing with her daughter Jia – who is cared for by Bai Li’s mother – through a phone interface. They regularly talk with one another while the young girl is led to believe her mother is still alive. Occasionally, Bai Li repeats the same mistakes she made earlier with her daughter while constantly trying to improve herself.
Somewhere else, a lonely flight attendant, Jeong-in, whose long-time boyfriend, Tae-Joo, lies comatose in a hospital bed, uses Wonderland to reconnect with an AI astronaut version of Tae-Joo. Although she misses him, Jeong-in is content with AI Tae-joo’s presence and his affectionate long-distance phone calls. Things change when the real Tae-joo awakens from his slumber and returns to live with his girlfriend, albeit seemingly different from how Jeong-in remembers him. At the same time, Hae-ri and Hyeon-soo, the two experts working at Wonderland, are called by an aging woman, Jeong-ran, who wants to establish contact with her dead grandson through the service and a man named Lee Yong-sik, who wants to be recreated through the app after he passes away to stay in touch with his family.
As the narrative progresses, the interweaving connections between simulation and reality lead to a spilling over of complicated emotions. A frustrated Jeong-in begins to wonder whether she was better off with Tae-joo’s Wonderland persona when his real-life self disappoints her at every turn. Jeong-ran’s grandson becomes a spoilt college student after his impoverished grandmother showers him with unaffordable gifts well above her mean. Meanwhile, AI Bai Li struggles to connect with her daughter meaningfully when she continues to bombard her with questions about when she will return. When Jia gets lost at the airport after a fight with her grandmother, a desperate Bai Li tries to escape her glass bowl existence within Wonderland but soon approaches a barrier that shatters her reality.
Wonderland Ending: Did Jeong-Ran Really Die?
Throughout the story, Hae-ri and Hyeon-soo manage Wonderland’s operation by setting up meetings with potential clients and ensuring the different AIs within the system do not start behaving out of line. When Jeong-ran begins contacting her grandson, Jin-gu, who lives as a theater student in London in the Wonderland simulation, both Hae-ri and Hyeon-soo witness the AI being pampered with lavish gifts by his desperate grandmother. Tragically, one day, Hae-ri calls up Jin-gu from her workstation to inform him that his grandmother has passed away after she collapsed on her way to work one morning. The death shocks Jin-gu, who had acted brashly and dismissively towards his grandmother before she died, ignoring her requests for connection.
Although the reasons behind the death aren’t explicitly clear, it is likely that Jeong-ran passed away from the stress of working several jobs at the same time to be able to afford her grandson whatever he wishes to live out his dream in London. Interestingly, it is also possible that Hae-ri, who is conscious of her responsibility as Wonderland’s operator and the emotional exploitation that the simulations can cause in people, lied about Jeong-ran’s death, knowing that Jin-gu was becoming increasingly bratty and spoiled. As Hae-ri and Hyeon-soo empathize with their client’s distress when reviving their loved ones, they understand their role in their job. Consequently, their overarching accountability may have forced Hae-ri’s hand as she disconnected Jin-gu from his grandmother for the greater good.
Did Bai Li Escape Wonderland’s Barriers?
Although Bai Li’s revivification through Wonderland’s services proves to be a way for her to extend her life and repent for her mistakes, her mother finds it an unnatural way to communicate. The AI simulation works on the principle that the recreated persona of the dead person can never learn about the fate of what happened to them, as it can cause unforeseen stress and malfunction within the system. Consequently, Bai Li’s mother cannot break the topic of her daughter’s death with Jia, who seems happy to converse with her mother, nor with AI Bai Li herself. Ultimately, the demands from Jia for her mom to return home, as well as her getting lost at the airport, cause Bai Li to reconsider her job’s value and mount a valiant effort to travel back, not knowing that she is trapped in a simulation.
Determined, the woman drives through the barren desert, trying to find the path back to civilization, only to run into a family of camel herders – who she met on the way to the archaeology site – time and again. This tips Bai Li into realizing that she is either in a dream or something strange has gripped her psyche. Regardless, she remains stalwart in her mission to get back and drives straight for the hills, where a terrifying sandstorm denies her progress. While she rides through its heart, Hae-ri and Hyeon-soo monitor her progress from Wonderland’s base, surmising that she is crossing the barriers of her simulation and entering the operating system itself. Sung-Joon arrives in the nick of time to help Bai Lie survive the storm. Later, she wakes up in the ethereal plane of Wonderland’s main OS.
While Bai Li remains enamored with the stunning sights of a digital Tree of Life originating from the simulation’s mainframe, a stuttering phone call from her goes out to Tae-Joo at the airport, requesting his help in finding Jia. Tae-joo locates her, and soon, Bai Li’s mother arrives to take the girl away, who stubbornly refuses. At a loss for choices, the grandmother cedes her authority and lets Jia contact her mother through Wonderland again. A reconstructed Bai Li, who is back in an airport herself, reveals the truth about her death to her daughter and finally connects with her mother, who breaks down after admitting that she misses her daughter and wishes she was still alive. Bai Li encourages them to live happily without feeling sorry for her death, as she will always remain in touch through the app.
From the beginning, Bai Li always harbored feelings of remorse and unfulfillment in her role as Jia’s mother. While alive, she never managed to do what she wished – professionally or personally. At the heart of her dissatisfaction was her constant absence from Jia’s life when the young girl needed a friend and someone to talk to. Despite learning that she is, in fact, an AI after breaking through Wonderland’s barriers, Bai Li accepts her fate and intends to keep in contact with her daughter and mother as a figment of digital recreation. She plans to read Jia her bedtime stories, listen to her problems, and console her when she needs it because she has never done it in real life. Additionally, the presence of Sung-Joon gives her slight comfort and solace that there is a chance of connection, even in Wonderland.
Did Tae-Joo and Jeong-in Reconcile?
After Tae-joo became comatose, Jeong-in missed him for a long time. Unable to bear the desolation and loneliness, she used Wonderland to recreate him to keep her company. He would wake her up daily, help her with her daily tasks, and give her a moral boost when necessary. Over time, she grew so used and dependent on the AI Tae-joo that she became more attached to him than she realized. When the real Tae-joo returned to her, she continued to compare the two versions of him, feeling like he was no longer the same as the one she was accustomed to through the simulation. In the end, despite having feelings for both, Jeong-in chooses the real Tae-joo and discontinues Wonderland’s service, admitting that the Tae-joo she was familiar with came back to her.
The conflict raging in Jeong-in’s heart stems from the dissonance she experiences after two versions of the person she loves suddenly enter her life. While the AI version seems attentive to her needs, complimentary, romantic, and incredibly tender, she feels the real Tae-joo lacks on all those fronts and almost seems alien to her. She remembers him in her mind as joyful, imprinting that persona on the AI Tae-Joo who keeps her company. Their effortless chemistry and intimate connection make her wonder whether she is better off in a relationship with the Wonderland Tae-joo than the real one, who is unpredictable and morose because of being unemployed. Eventually, this conflicted state of emotions bubbles out into aggression toward the actual Tae-joo.
Meanwhile, Tae-Joo himself is confused about Jeong-in’s mixed reception towards him. He catches her phone ringing on one occasion when AI Tae-joo calls her. The growing distance between the pair makes him feel insecure about his status in the relationship and whether he has done something wrong to affront Jeong-in. Intending to bridge the gap, he arrives at the airport to travel with Jeong-in to Barcelona, a place she loves. No longer able to keep her secret hidden, Jeong-in reveals to Tae-Joo that she has been talking with a fake version of him through Wonderland’s app because she missed him so much during his comatose period. Stunned and hurt, Tae-Joo leaves the plane alighting upon the fact that she is in love with someone else – even if it may be a digital version of him.
However, in the end, Jeong-in decides to stop using Wonderland as she wishes to be with the real Tae-Joo and not the one she created to keep moving on with her life in his absence. The two reconcile, and an emotional Tae-joo breaks down into tears. Meanwhile, AI Tae-Joo lets go of the space station handrail and falls toward Earth, stating that he is finally going back home. At the center of Tae-joo and Jeong-in’s relationship is the distance created between them when the former fell unconscious. During that time, Jeong-in felt that he was so far away from her that it was almost as if he was in space – hence why she imagined his AI version as a spaceman. Ultimately, though, AI and actual Tae-joo bridged that gap and returned to her like she always wanted.
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