Members of polite society, […] just a few years ago, were basking in the afterglow of end-of-history market liberalism, backslapping one another from within their boardrooms about the beauty of endless economic growth and the business “win-win”. Now that this world-that-never-was has come crumbling down, Parasite offers a parable on the rot at the foundations of the proverbial house.There is definitely something vampiric – parasitic – about the elite tutoring world [depicted in Parasite], which has grown from being a folksy after-school job to a global $96 million-dollar industry: lease your brains and unspool your unspent promise to our wealthy children, young underemployed graduate, because your future is already dead.
[In Parasite, we observe] the impossible weight of being so dependent on another for money or grace and the slow-burning pain of living in a world which insists you could be so much more than you currently are, with the hidden clause being if only you were born to someone else.
— Rebecca Liu (Another Gaze)
The Oscars needed a Parasite more than Parasite needs the scars.
— John Bleasdale (Writers on Film)
All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.