BLUE BAYOU
*****
Director: Justin Chon
Screenwriter: Justin Chon
Principal cast:
Justin Chon
Alicia Vikander
Linh-Dan Pham
Mark O’Brien
Vondie Curtis-Hall
Sydney Kowalske
Country: USA/Canada
Classification: M
Runtime: 117 mins.
Australian release date: 18 November 2021.
In the United States of America, the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 granted citizenship to all children who were adopted from overseas after the year 2000 but it wasn’t made retrospective so didn’t protect anyone who’d turned 18 before the law was passed. Thus, if you were above that age and had been adopted before the law was passed, you were deemed an illegal alien and liable for deportation. Incredible but true and many people have since been deported to countries about which they know very little, having been adopted as children, and whose language they can’t speak. Justin Chon’s incredibly powerful, moving tragedy Blue Bayou is about one such case but it represents the stories of many other people who have found themselves in a similar position. Chon wrote the screenplay, directs and plays the lead role in his film, having stumbled across the idea when he started hearing deportation stories from his Korean friends. The script took four years to complete, during which time Chon consulted with a number of adoptees from various backgrounds and they all agreed it was an accurate reflection of many of their stories.
Antonio LeBlanc (Chon who, in this film at least, sounds a lot like Matthew McConaughey) is a tattoo artist living in New Orleans with his pregnant wife Kathy (Alicia Vikander) and her young daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske). He’s having trouble finding gainful employment because he has a criminal record from his past and his tattooing isn’t bringing in enough cash to support the three of them and the soon-to-be-delivered baby. While shopping at a local supermarket one day, the family is confronted by Kathy’s ex-husband Ace (Mark O’Brien), a cop, and his aggressive partner Denny (Emory Cohen) and Antonio is arrested, but when Kathy goes to bail him out, she finds that he has been transferred to ICE, the US Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency. It transpires that, even though he was adopted from Korea at the age of three and has been in the States for over 30 years, his adoptive parents never had him naturalised so he is considered a non-citizen and is liable for deportation. His attorney, Barry Boucher (Vondie Curtis-Hall), informs Antonio that his fees start at $5,000 and that, should Antonio lose the case, he will be kicked out of the country with no possibility of ever returning. Alternatively, he could leave and apply for immigration from outside the US, a process that might take years. What would you do? Antonio tells seven-year-old Jessie that “I ain’t goin’ nowhere” and his lawyer that “I’m not leaving my family.” The deck is stacked against him, though, and the forces of fate and family align against the hapless man.
Blue Bayou is a great achievement directorially but Chon is also an excellent actor. It is difficult to be both behind and in front of the camera but he has done it successfully, maybe because he’s so comfortable acting (he started in 2005) but also because he was so familiar with his screenplay (after four years of writing and re-writing, he probably could have made it with his eyes closed). Vikander is outstanding, too, playing a down-to-earth, grounded woman who’s the rock to Antonio’s rocket, and little Sydney Kowalske is a sheer delight, stealing every scene she’s in. Interestingly, two DoPs were behind the camera for the shoot, Ante Cheng and Matthew Chuang, and their cinematography has a gritty, almost cinema-verité look, via the use of tight close-ups. Blue Bayou also has a great a jazz-influenced score, very fitting for its New Orleans setting.
This a gut-wrenching film, one that tells an important story. Earlier this year, Chon was interviewed in GQ and he said, “A lot of people were adopted in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It just doesn't make sense to me. For the case of this movie, you have somebody who is a step further than that: you already have these questions of identity from being adopted. And then, not all adoptions end well. So sometimes parents give up their adopted kids, or they abuse them. Antonio goes through foster care and is abused. So, to be also given up by your adoptive parents and be bounced around, and then for your country to finally say, we're also like giving you up. Psychologically, I'm sure it's absolutely devastating. So, for a lot of people who get deported, there's a high suicide rate.” As the circumstances in Blue Bayou show, that’s all too easy to believe. Here in Australia, we too are splitting up families and deporting long-term residents to countries where they’ve hardly ever been or are unable to remember, for what are, in many cases, relatively minor offences. The creators of that policy should take a look at this movie.
Screenwriter: Justin Chon
Principal cast:
Justin Chon
Alicia Vikander
Linh-Dan Pham
Mark O’Brien
Vondie Curtis-Hall
Sydney Kowalske
Country: USA/Canada
Classification: M
Runtime: 117 mins.
Australian release date: 18 November 2021.
In the United States of America, the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 granted citizenship to all children who were adopted from overseas after the year 2000 but it wasn’t made retrospective so didn’t protect anyone who’d turned 18 before the law was passed. Thus, if you were above that age and had been adopted before the law was passed, you were deemed an illegal alien and liable for deportation. Incredible but true and many people have since been deported to countries about which they know very little, having been adopted as children, and whose language they can’t speak. Justin Chon’s incredibly powerful, moving tragedy Blue Bayou is about one such case but it represents the stories of many other people who have found themselves in a similar position. Chon wrote the screenplay, directs and plays the lead role in his film, having stumbled across the idea when he started hearing deportation stories from his Korean friends. The script took four years to complete, during which time Chon consulted with a number of adoptees from various backgrounds and they all agreed it was an accurate reflection of many of their stories.
Antonio LeBlanc (Chon who, in this film at least, sounds a lot like Matthew McConaughey) is a tattoo artist living in New Orleans with his pregnant wife Kathy (Alicia Vikander) and her young daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske). He’s having trouble finding gainful employment because he has a criminal record from his past and his tattooing isn’t bringing in enough cash to support the three of them and the soon-to-be-delivered baby. While shopping at a local supermarket one day, the family is confronted by Kathy’s ex-husband Ace (Mark O’Brien), a cop, and his aggressive partner Denny (Emory Cohen) and Antonio is arrested, but when Kathy goes to bail him out, she finds that he has been transferred to ICE, the US Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency. It transpires that, even though he was adopted from Korea at the age of three and has been in the States for over 30 years, his adoptive parents never had him naturalised so he is considered a non-citizen and is liable for deportation. His attorney, Barry Boucher (Vondie Curtis-Hall), informs Antonio that his fees start at $5,000 and that, should Antonio lose the case, he will be kicked out of the country with no possibility of ever returning. Alternatively, he could leave and apply for immigration from outside the US, a process that might take years. What would you do? Antonio tells seven-year-old Jessie that “I ain’t goin’ nowhere” and his lawyer that “I’m not leaving my family.” The deck is stacked against him, though, and the forces of fate and family align against the hapless man.
Blue Bayou is a great achievement directorially but Chon is also an excellent actor. It is difficult to be both behind and in front of the camera but he has done it successfully, maybe because he’s so comfortable acting (he started in 2005) but also because he was so familiar with his screenplay (after four years of writing and re-writing, he probably could have made it with his eyes closed). Vikander is outstanding, too, playing a down-to-earth, grounded woman who’s the rock to Antonio’s rocket, and little Sydney Kowalske is a sheer delight, stealing every scene she’s in. Interestingly, two DoPs were behind the camera for the shoot, Ante Cheng and Matthew Chuang, and their cinematography has a gritty, almost cinema-verité look, via the use of tight close-ups. Blue Bayou also has a great a jazz-influenced score, very fitting for its New Orleans setting.
This a gut-wrenching film, one that tells an important story. Earlier this year, Chon was interviewed in GQ and he said, “A lot of people were adopted in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It just doesn't make sense to me. For the case of this movie, you have somebody who is a step further than that: you already have these questions of identity from being adopted. And then, not all adoptions end well. So sometimes parents give up their adopted kids, or they abuse them. Antonio goes through foster care and is abused. So, to be also given up by your adoptive parents and be bounced around, and then for your country to finally say, we're also like giving you up. Psychologically, I'm sure it's absolutely devastating. So, for a lot of people who get deported, there's a high suicide rate.” As the circumstances in Blue Bayou show, that’s all too easy to believe. Here in Australia, we too are splitting up families and deporting long-term residents to countries where they’ve hardly ever been or are unable to remember, for what are, in many cases, relatively minor offences. The creators of that policy should take a look at this movie.