As the “Rocky” score soars from the car stereo, Eli (Son Sukku) and Audrey (Moon Choi) are having two completely different experiences while in the same vehicle. He’s elated, moving his hands and head almost as if he were conducting the orchestra that performed the music. She is on the verge of tears, perhaps moved by his sudden lightheartedness, but more likely interpreting the notes in a less triumphant, more personally introspective way.
Shot directly through the windshield in a single, uninterrupted take, the moment exemplifies the crux of their unlikely friendship, which eventually turns romantic. Though both are children of Korean immigrants to the U.S., their experiences under that broad umbrella of identity couldn’t be more dissimilar. A dual character study, Stephanie Ahn’s heartsore debut feature “Bedford Park” tracks the two characters’ attempts at recalibrating their unstable lives, while simultaneously assessing their testy familial bonds, first separately and later leaning on each other.
That Ahn centers characters in their 30s, who’ve attained a certain level of maturity but still feel adrift, makes for an inherently more interesting premise. Each has plenty of baggage, all the more so since a pivotal piece of their distress stems from the fragmented idea of self that afflicts many first-generation Americans, caught between the only country they know and the one their parents left behind. This culturally specific, millennial-minded narrative is not a coming-of-age story, but one where the protagonists, already of age, undergo a rediscovery of parts of themselves that were forcefully suppressed.
Audrey, or Ah-yoon (her Korean name), has temporarily left her job as a physical therapist in New York City, and moved back in with her aging immigrant parents in New Jersey. She speaks Korean and is attuned to the nuances of the culture — for better and for worse. Meanwhile, Eli, who was adopted by a white woman as a child, has mostly abandoned any ties to his ethnic background. His athletic build in adulthood can be traced back to his passion for wrestling in high school. Now, he works as a mall security guard, always on high alert, hiding from his stepbrother who threatens to drag him back into a former life.
Their universes collide when Eli gets into a car accident with Audrey’s mother. At first contentious, given Eli’s standoffish attitude, he and Audrey slowly become acquaintances. The drama feels at its most lived-in and engaging when Sukku and Choi’s characters sit together to share food or talk. Those sequences feature believable exchanges that evince some of their most superficial differences (Eli can’t handle spicy food, and his Korean-language skills are limited, despite it being his first language). And yet, the casualness makes it all the more authentic.
They slowly peel away each other’s defenses as they spend more time together (Audrey volunteers to drive Eli to school and work after the crash). On Audrey’s plate, there’s the relationship with her mother, who wants her to date a wealthy man, the multiple miscarriages she’s endured, the self-harm she takes part in to feel a sense of control, her affinity for violence during sex, and a rekindled interest in photography. Besides a desire to return to wrestling, Eli has flings with younger women from his classes, but he’s also a great neighbor to an elderly man. Yet, as a father to a young girl, he’s not measuring up.
At times, more than rendering them humans with layered existences, the subplots and character details make the film’s reality feel convoluted, because these components don’t always come off like conspicuous additions, rather than unimposingly folded into their personalities. Through all these, thankfully, Ahn directs Sukku and Choi into measured performances that not only ring emotionally truthful but complementary.
Sukku’s Eli transitions from bitter closed-offness to allowing Audrey in. In turn, Choi appears to being playing two almost distinct women, one inside the house with her parents where a different set of rules apply, and someone else in the company of Eli. And while viewers could easily assume Eli was spared the expectations of a Korean family like Audrey’s, those who raised him also wounded him. In fact, they both bear physical scars from painful situations. As on-the-nose as that may seem, those visible marks resonate as proof of what they’ve survived, making it easy to forgive the idea’s unambiguity.
Early on, an extended flashback revives Audrey and her brother’s childhood in a household with an alcoholic father. The patriarch’s rage at feeling degraded in America turns the home into a war zone. This memory, though emotionally charged, doesn’t exactly seem indispensable, considering that other scenes in the narrative’s present reveal some of the same information. During this window into the past, another character is introduced that both Audrey and her sibling (seen in the first act as an adult gay man estranged from their traditional parents) both remember: a Korean boy who lived across the street from them.
The identity of that kid results in a contrived and unnecessary “twist” that also provides reasoning for the title (which is not where the present-day events take place). Because of these and other choices about Audrey and Eli’s futures, the third act comes across as adamant for several elements to pay off too nearly. Overall, however, “Bedford Park” captures the intricacies of diasporic communities through the lens of two people overwhelmed with burdens that anyone can identify with, reflecting how they each grew up and who they became as a consequence.
English (US) ·