Blue Bayou

I really enjoyed this movie. It was very emotional and moving. Definitely one of the best dramas I've watched this year. Hats off to Justin Chon for making an amazing film. 8 stars.

Blue Bayou written and directed by Justin Chon is a powerful new film about a Korean-American, Antonio LeBlanc, played by Justin Chon, who is fighting for his family and his status as a US citizen.

Adopted from Korea at the age of 3, Antonio lives in Louisiana. He speaks fluid English. He is married to a US citizen, and he and his wife are expecting their first child. He is a stepfather to Jessie (Sydney Kowalske), the daughter of his wife, Kathy, played by Alicia Vikander, who calls him daddy.

Victim of racial profiling by a police officer, he is arrested and then his immigration status is called into question. Kathy and Antonio seek the counsel of a lawyer, played by Vondie Curtis-Hall, who informs them that before the year 2000, US foreign adoption laws were very ill defined, and in many cases immigration paperwork was never filed by adopting parents. In Antonio's case, his adopting family abandoned him after 6 months and he bounced around in foster care for much of his young life after coming to the US.

The film was a powerful representation of the uncertainty and difficulty many immigrants face in the US. It was both deeply saddening and moving as you watch the turmoil the family endures, especially the child affected by it all. The film brings awareness to an important issue that has yet to be addressed and has been the cause of many, many deportations of adults who have lived in the US for 30 to 40 years and some times longer, do not even know the language of their country of origin, who are deported to this foreign land without any family connections or similar ties to the country they are being sent.

Blue Bayou is an official selection of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film contains some beautiful cinematography of the Louisiana bayou and breathtaking sunset shots taken around New Orleans. The screenplay also stood out in the way that he portrayed both the struggle and impossible choices the protagonist faces. Also, his own identity as an Asian American, looking for his past and a cultural touchstone and comparing it to the over thirty years he spent in Louisiana feeling like an outcast as the "other."

A free preview pass and Alicia Vikander attracted me to the movies this evening. The intense acting and generally good filmcraft are strengths. The regional accents and a certain performance of the namesake song are standouts. But there are diverging subplots all over the place, detracting from the main theme. Sometimes the characters do not ring true and are otherwise too unsympathetic.

This was made expressly to champion the cause of international adoptees who become deportable because their stateside adopting parents failed to satisfy all the formalities. Their plight is akin to that of the Dreamers. The film comes just when a "fix" in the form of the proposed Adoptee Citizenship Act is pending. To get that enacted is indeed a worthy cause.

Justin Chon did a great job with this one. It's not often you get a director/writer/lead actor in a movie but he did all of those and it was all very well done. The story is poignant, quite incredible that something like this is even possible in real life, but it is sadly the reality, and that in a country that wants to be the example for the rest of the world. To be honest I found this incredibly sad, and that in the land of the free, in the land of opportunities. Justin Chon is not only a good writer but he was also very convincing in his role as the American-Korean. The rest of the cast were also very good playing their respective characters, especially the young Sydney Kowalske. She played very natural, almost like she wasn't acting, and that's not given to a lot of child actors. Blue Bayou isn't a movie that will leave you with a smile, and that's good, because these kind of stories are still happening now, and a smile would just be wrong when you think about all the lives that have been destroyed.

"Blue Bayou" (2021 release; 116 min.) brings the story of Antonio Leblanc. As the movie opens, Antonio is interviewing for a job and turned down. From the interview we learn that he was born in Korea and adopted at a young age by a family in Louisiana. Antonio is married to Kathy, who is highly pregnant with the couple's first child (Kathy has a young daughter Jessie from a prior marriage). Kathy's ex is a New Orleans cop. One day, he and another cop harass Kathy and end up viciously beating and arresting Antonio, who before we understand what is happening is facing deportation to Korea... At this point we are 15 min into the film but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing exprience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this film is a labor of love from leading actor/writer/producer/director Justin Chon. Here he brings a fictional story (loosely based on actual facts) of how an adopted person who has lived in the US for decades still may face deportation, and faster than you may think is possible. What exactly causes this to happen is the crux of the entire film so I'm not going into details about this. The movie benefits enormously from the heartfelt performances of Justin Chon (as Antonio), newcomer Sydney Kowalske as 5 yr. Old Jessie and lst but certainly not least Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander ("The Danish Girl"), pretty much unrecognizable as Kristy (it wasn't until the end credits rolled that I realized it was indeed Vikander). These performances carry the film. That doesn't mean that the film is flawless: the script is at times uneven. And the camera work contains far too many extreme closeups and handheld footage. And yes, the movie does contain the classic title track song, but not by Roy Orbison or by Linda Ronstadt. Instead we hear it covered by... Alicia Vikander! Yes, not only is she a top actress and stunningly beautiful, but she can also sing. Oh yes, she can!

"Blue Bayou" premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival to positive acclaim, and the film opened in select theaters in late September. The Sunday early evening screening where I saw this at my local arthouse theater here in Cincinnati was attended so-so (7 people in total, including myself). Regardless, if you are in the mood for a heavy duty family drama that is likely to raise the hairs on your arms, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater (if you still can), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.