Celine wasn't a perfect parent and person and making her all good with Rumi isn't an accurate portrayal, but neither is making her full blown evil and abusive. Some people need to chill with how they view her or characterise her.
The idea of Celine consciously and deliberately causing any physical harm to Rumi or denying her any joy is crazy to me.
Celine's friend, literally her soulmate, trusted her to take care of Rumi. Of her child. Why would Celine go around beating up that kid and be intentionally cruel to her? How would she not think Miyeong would despise her for it? She clearly cares about Miyeong so why would she hurt her child and just live with that?
I don't really like children but I wouldn't be rude to a stranger kid if it came to me looking after them. Yet alone my friend's kid.
Why would Celine be such a vile person?
I think people take the implied neglect too far. The neglect and parent's imperfections and mess ups throughout rising a child doesn't have to be in those extremes where it's physical abuse or a heavy psychological abuse or the neglect of the needs like food and housing.
Many parents are emotionally unavailable and fail to cater to their children emotional needs. It's common. The parents might not even realise this.
It's truly not that hard to aknowledge that a parent can love and care for their child, do everything they can to provide for them and make sure they're doing well — and still fail to satisfy the more psychological needs because of their own limitations that they don't see.
Yes, Celine was neglectful, which resulted in Rumi feeling like she wasn't loved, even if Celine states she does love Rumi. But I think it came from fear and Celine's own poor mental state, rather than malice and ill intent. She most likely kept Rumi at arm's length because of conflicting feelings about what Rumi is and what she might become and because she lived by the motto that any ugly feeling must be hidden, so you can guess what a mess her mind was.
And there had been a huge misunderstanding of what Celine thought was right and good for Rumi vs what Rumi actually needed from her.
Tbh Celine is neither a good, nor bad parent, she's average. Really. A parent doesn't need to be the devil incarnate for a child to feel neglected. I'd say Celine in the movie is simply made realistic, not evil. She's a broken person who was incapable of rising another to not be broken themselves.
