It is often said that love can find you in unexpected ways, as it happens in Stephanie Ahn’s tender yet intense romance, Bedford Park where the damaged, dysfunctional souls of two individuals become the peculiar glue that binds them and the bedrock of their deep connect.
Two second-generation, Korean immigrants, physical therapist Audrey (Moon Choi) and former wrestler Eli (Son Suk-ku), both widely different people but similarly tormented by wounds from the past. Lost, adrift and restless, they meet under a far from favourable circumstance. Her mother’s car accident brings Audrey back to her family home. Sparks fly, but of the furious kind, between her and Eli, who has been responsible for the mishap. The hate at first sight gradually and predictably leads to unconditional love but the difference lies not in the destination so much as in their journey together —the carpool rides, Rocky soundtrack on car stereo, meals at food courts, awkward silences, sideways glances, kiss in the rain. The relationship grows with the healing that the flawed twosome offer each other in the face of the shared family trauma.
Set in New Jersey but named after the Bronx neighbourhood, the film won the US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Debut Feature at the Sundance Film Festival. A tad protracted, its strength lies in the delicacy in Ahn’s writing, her unique romantic vision and the scintillating performances from the two charismatic Korean stars. Moon Choi and Son Suk-ku are well tuned with each other, her mercurial ways juxtaposed against his air of melancholy. They are almost like two sides of the same coin, hurt and broken beyond repair, seething with rage, terribly lonely and extremely vulnerable. But their internalised acerbity masks reservoirs of compassion within. They are certainly not beyond hope, redemption, release and relief.
Ahn imagines and crafts a rare discomfiting moment in the script for Audrey to drop her guard and for Eli to get in touch with his caring, sensitive side. Never have two bickering people thawed on screen and discovered their feelings for each other in the rather prosaic yet profoundly heartwarming way that Ahn designs for them. A strange yet perfect start on the road to transformation and a sign of Ahn’s distinct touch in dealing with matters of love.
She lends a similar emotional acuity and complexity to her film at large, especially in the way she roots things in the strong Korean cultural identity, family dynamics, the chaos of societal expectations as opposed to personal dreams and, of course, the centrality of food and the off kilter expressions of love—muted than demonstrative, distant than intimate. It’s like a conversation that Korean-Americans are having with themselves than with the other Americans around them. In Ahn’s hands, the particulars of their hyphenated identity then becomes universal, the complex emotional landscape of Audrey and Eli reflecting contradictions and fragmentations that can hold true for members of any immigrant community in any corner of the world. The Korean concept of han, described as “the ancient heartache in a person carrying their family’s trauma” is a burden many others bear in exile from their homelands.
It is the twist in the finale, too contrived, neat and convenient, that makes this otherwise clutter-breaking, poignant love story swerve disappointingly towards the run of the mill and populist. The moment also feels deliberately shoved in to eventually justify what feels like a misleading title for the film.
But the quibbles aside, Ahn’s is a promising debut, one that may not sweep you off your feet but makes you pause and ponder on the many ironies of immigrant life.