Synopsis

After watching Blue Bayou, you'll feel very informed about and saddened by the US's immigrant adoptee deportation policy. The story focuses on Antonio (Justin Chon), a Korean American tattoo artist based in Louisiana whose parents put him up for adoption shortly after coming to the US in the 1980s. He lives with his pregnant wife, Kathy (Alicia Vikander), and step-daughter, Jessie (Sydney Kowalske). Antonio and his family's lives are flipped upside down after a confrontation between him and police officers Ace (Mark O'Brien) – who's also Jessie's estranged father – and Denny (Emory Cohen). The confrontation ultimately results in Antonio receiving a deportation order; apparently, Antonio's foster parents didn't complete the necessary paperwork that would’ve made him a legal US citizen. With limited time and resources to legally challenge the order, Antonio will go to extreme lengths to make sure he can stay with his family.

Analysis

The film does a great job at getting the viewer to buy into the story in several ways. First, it wisely starts us off spending time with Antonio in his day-to-day rather than when he receives the deportation order. This helps establish Antonio as a flawed individual trying to do what's best for his family rather than a fictional character whose entire identity is tied to his immigration status. And in its depiction of a good person's reasonably normal life, the first act makes watching Antonio receive deportation orders later on both upsetting and almost surreal.  Second, each character is written with great depth – hardly anyone is rendered as one-note. For instance, while you immediately start on Antonio's side and continue to sympathize with him as you learn more about his situation, you can't help but feel frustrated by his foolish actions that occur throughout the film. Conversely, while the film sets up Ace to be an antagonist, you eventually understand where he's coming from, and he develops into someone you want to see happy by the end. Stellar performances immensely bolster characters' authenticity, and in this department Vikander completely steals the show. Antonio and Kathy's relationship feels authentic because of how well Vikander conveys Kathy's love for him. You also easily absorb the severity of the family's predicament and Antonio's dumb decisions from Kathy's evident sadness and frustration. What makes Vikander's performance exceptional in my opinion is its nuance: a variety of non-verbal cues like facial expressions and body language clue you in on how Kathy's feeling, and whenever she gets emotional she does so gradually rather than abruptly. These elements combine to make the viewer emotionally invested in a tragic story that feels ripped straight out of the headlines.

There's also a lot of interesting cinematography techniques and symbolism employed that enhance the viewing experience. The film makes heavy use of one-shots, and there are multiple instances where scenes are intentionally blurry either because of shaking of the camera or some other method. These help immerse the viewer by making scenes feel like they're taking place in the real world and casting them in a way that captures the POV character's mental state. Blue is a color that constantly appears in scenes, from clothes and other objects to even the tint of the camera lens. I felt this effectively established a melancholic tone that reflected certain characters’ state of mind and foreshadowed hardship. Lastly, the bayou near Antonio's house that acts as his private getaway appears multiple times throughout the film, both in Antonio's imagination and reality. By taking Antonio's interactions with the bayou and contextualizing them through the lyrics of the song Blue Bayou – which seems more than appropriate not only because the movie and song share the name, but also because Kathy sings the song at one point – we can see how the bayou is a place that restores his spirits and is his most vital physical connection to this country. While not integral to the story, the inclusion of these elements increased my engagement with the film by making me ask what it all meant.

Most importantly, this movie strongly articulates its critique of the adoptee deportation policy by demonstrating how it destroys people's ability to maintain personal connections. For Antonio, having a family to call his own is the most essential connection he could ask for, given his separation from his parents and the trauma he endured from living in foster care. Not only was Antonio able to find a family in Kathy and Jessie, but he's also welcomed into an Asian community upon meeting Parker (Linh Dan Pham), a terminally ill Vietnamese-American woman. These familial and communal bonds connect Antonio to this country on a personal level, and his story mirrors that of many immigrants who have established new roots in the United States. The fact that Antonio must fight to stay in the US is disheartening because this is his home, not only because of how much time he’s spent here but also because of the human connections he’s made. So, asking him to leave the US is equivalent to asking him to forfeit what has made him whole.

[***SPOILER WARNING FOR NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS***]

However, the film needlessly introduces a variety of subplots during the second act that don't offer much payoff. For example, Antonio goes back to stealing motorcycles to pay for the services of his attorney (Vondie Curtis-Hall), a crime which Ace is aware of and results in Kathy leaving Antonio. However, Antonio never receives any legal punishment for his actions, and he and Kathy still end up back together by the third act. We learn that Antonio may be able to stay in this country if his foster mother Susanne (Susan McPhail) speaks on his behalf at his court date, but he's adamantly opposed to this idea given how she never stopped Antonio's foster father from physically abusing him while Antonio lived with them. Even though Antonio convinces Susanne to appear at his hearing, his efforts are ultimately pointless because the hearing doesn't even happen. While I felt that Parker was a fascinating character and was sad to see her pass, her only critical role was introducing Antonio to a new community. And I can't tell you how many times Ace showed up demanding that Kathy allow him to see Jessie, only for him to leave in a huff after Kathy refused to do so. So rather than contributing anything substantive to the plot, these side stories essentially felt like padding for runtime.

I also felt that the inclusion of Denny as a pivotal antagonist massively detracted from the film's overall message. For context, Denny becomes increasingly hostile towards Antonio after their initial confrontation. This hostility reaches a climax when Denny and his buddies mercilessly beat up Antonio the morning of his hearing, and Antonio's absence results in the hearing being canceled. Firstly, this forced absence undercuts all of the effort that Antonio and others had put into increasing his chances of staying in this country by not even allowing him to enter the courtroom. But more importantly, it was a mistake to make Denny the sole reason for Antonio missing his court appearance. The movie unwittingly undermines its critique of the US immigration policy by casting an individual – one that isn't even involved in ICE, mind you – as a significant reason for Antonio's deportation, rather than showing how the only real culprit is the system that enforces the policy. With this in mind, I think it would have made much more sense if Antonio had been able to make his court appearance, but his appeal was thrown out despite everyone's hard work. This would've more effectively demonstrated how, despite the strength of an adopted immigrant's argument to stay in this country, deportation is still likely given the US's fatally flawed stance on the issue.  

Conclusion

In closing, I think that Blue Bayou is a good and powerful movie to watch. Despite some major flaws in plot structure, it effectively gets you emotionally invested in the story of a person unjustifiably asked to leave this country, that's wrapped in an interesting visual style and layers of symbolism. I will continue reflecting on the film for a while, and I hope the same holds true for you if you watch it.

Rating: 3.5/5