Indigenous people of Easter Island / WED 6-16-21 / Jim Sheridan gives Daniel Day-Lewis nothing to work with in this Irish dramedy / Gossip in slang

Constructor: Finn Vigeland

Relative difficulty: Easy (unless you are very unfamiliar with movie titles, possibly) 

THEME: MISDIRECTED (65A: Led astray ... or like the films at 19-, 25-, 40- and 57-Across?) — theme answers are film titles in which "direction"-related words have been changed to their opposites (so the titles are "MIS-DIRECTED"); these titles are then clued as if the films were made poorly (i.e. MISDIRECTED) :

Theme answers:

• "MY RIGHT FOOT" (19A: Jim Sheridan gives Daniel Day-Lewis nothing to work with in this Irish dramedy (1989)) (from "My Left Foot")
• "KNIVES IN" (25A: Rian Johnson helms this snoozer of a whodunit starring Daniel Craig (2019)) (from "Knives Out")
• "WEST OF EDEN" (40A: Elia Kazan bungles this John Steinbeck novel adaptation (1955)) (from "East of Eden")
• "STEP DOWN" (57A: Anne Fletcher misses the mark with this first film in a dance franchise (2006)) (from "Step Up")

Word of the Day: HANGUL (55A: Korean alphabet system) —

The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul/Hangeul in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is a writing system for the Korean language created by King Sejong the Great in 1443. The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs used to pronounce them, and they are systematically modified to indicate phonetic features; similarly, the vowel letters are systematically modified for related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system.

Modern Hangul orthography uses 24 basic letters: 14 consonant letters (ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅊㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ) and 10 vowel letters (ㅏ ㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡ ㅣ). There are also 27 complex letters formed by combining the basic letters: 5 tense consonant letters (ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅆ ㅉ), 11 complex consonant letters (ㄳ ㄵ ㄶ ㄺ ㄻ ㄼ ㄽ ㄾ ㄿ ㅀ ㅄ) and 11 complex vowel letters (ㅐ ㅒ ㅔ ㅖ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅢ). Four basic letters in the original alphabet are no longer used: 1 vowel letter (ㆍ) and 3 consonant letters (ㅿ ㆁ ㆆ).

The Korean letters are written in syllabic blocks with the alphabetic letters arranged in two dimensions. For example, Hangeul in Korean is spelled 한글, not ㅎㅏㄴㄱㅡㄹ. [...] 

As it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems, it has been described as an "alphabetic syllabary". As in traditional Chinese and Japanese writing, Korean texts were traditionally written top to bottom, right to left, and are occasionally still written this way for stylistic purposes. Today, it is typically written from left to right with spaces between words and western-style punctuation. (wikipedia)

speaking of  MISDIRECTED...

This was one that got better upon further reflection. Or more impressive, anyway. Noticing things after you finish doesn't exactly change the solving experience, but can make you appreciate what you experienced a bit more. In this case, I actually had a good time solving the puzzle, but the concept seemed slightly thin to me—I thought movie titles were being changed simply by turning one word in the title into its opposite. So when I was done I thought, "Cute, but it's not a very tight themer set. What about all the other opposites out there: day/night, good/bad, right/wrong... this group feels pretty arbitrary." At this point, I thought MISDIRECTED referred solely to the fact that titles were merely wrong/changed. Sometimes, though, thinking about why something is weak can lead you to realizing it's actually strong and you (me) just missed the trick. When I realized that all the title changes related specifically to direction—that all the changed words were specifically direction-related words—well, then I was like "Ohhhhhh ... sorry, puzzle. My bad. That actually is pretty tight." I kinda want a North/South answer now. But not enough to be mad about it. Good theme!