Bedford Park, Stephanie Ahn’s debut, is a subdued but incredibly touching look at what it is to be an immigrant. The movie follows Eli (Son Sukku) and Audrey (Moon Choi), who meet after Eli gets into a car accident with Audrey’s mother. But Bedford Park is less about their relationship and more about their different experiences in the diaspora and what that says about immigration as a whole.
From the outside, there’s this tendency to believe that immigration stories are all the same. In fact, there’s even a tendency to glamorize them or even glorify the troubles and tribulations that they sometimes entail. But just as people are different, immigration stories are different too, and Eli and Audrey perfectly exemplify that.
Both children of Korean immigrants, Eli and Audrey could not be more different. Audrey has temporarily left her job in New York City and moved back in with her aging immigrant parents. She speaks Korean and is very dialed in with the nuances of the culture. Meanwhile, Eli was adopted by a white woman as a child and retains very few ties to his ethnic background.
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This is merely the setup for a dual character study, one that hits mostly because the movie gives us protagonists that aren’t in the YA range, just discovering themselves. Instead, both Eli and Audrey are already adults, old enough to understand themselves up to a point, but still young enough to feel like something is missing. The movie can then explore what it means to live in the diaspora, and how that sometimes ends up leaving you with a fragmented idea of who you are and who you are meant to be.
You’re never too old to rediscover parts of yourself, or to choose to make something you never thought belonged to you part of your identity.
For anyone who has experienced what it is to live as an immigrant, or be a first-generation child of immigrants, the movie feels like being seen. Sure, some of the coincidences that happen in the third act can end up feeling a little too much, but by that point the movie has accrued enough goodwill and set the scene of who these people are so well that it’s hard to argue against the beats that feel a little forced.
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Because yes, there’s a certain level of loss that comes with being first-generation anything, often with one foot in the only country you know and one foot in the one your parents left behind. Ahn captures that really well, and takes care to showcase everything from the generational trauma and the painful wounds of cultural displacement to the power of not just finding, but choosing your personal identity.
There’s no end to this journey, no moment of growth that feels definitive. Ahn also understands that. But sometimes, seeing the opposite of yourself in the mirror really helps put into perspective what you have, what you don’t, and what you want. And even if this isn’t your reality, Bedford Park is still a great look at how we build our own identity and how the answer to that doesn’t have to remain static. Instead, we keep building; we keep growing. For better or worse.
Bedford Park screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
