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‘blue bayou’: film review | cannes 2021.

Director Justin Chon stars opposite Alicia Vikander in this drama about a Korean-born adoptee raised in Louisiana, fighting to keep his family together as he faces deportation.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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The harsh loopholes in American immigration legislation that allow adoptees who have spent their entire lives in the country to be deported over paperwork irregularities provide a sturdy narrative spine for Blue Bayou . There’s enormous heart behind Justin Chon’s drama, and wrenching performances full of feeling from the writer-director and his co-star Alicia Vikander . But those strengths don’t obscure the problems of an overdetermined screenplay, with too many plot points competing for focus and too many moments of strained melodrama. This is a film that seldom hits an emotional note with delicacy when it can hammer it.

Opening Sept. 17 through Focus Features after launching in Cannes ’ Un Certain Regard section, Chon’s third feature as director following Gook and Ms. Purple has the feel of a Sundance movie that could have benefitted from an extra round in the screenwriting lab. Still, there’s a lot here that’s good, starting with the honorable intention to tell a story about the travesty of immigration law enforcement that tears apart American families.

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Release date : Friday, Sept. 17 Venue : Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard) Cast : Justin Chon, Alicia Vikander, Mark O’Brien, Linh-Dan Pham, Sydney Kowalske, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Emory Cohen, Geraldine Singer, Toby Vitrano, Altonio Jackson, Truong Quang Tran, Sage Kim Gray, Susan McPhail, Jacci Gresham Director-screenwriter : Justin Chon

Chon plays Antonio LeBlanc, who came to the U.S. from Korea at age 3, adopted by a since-deceased couple in a small Louisiana bayou town near Baton Rouge. He now lives in New Orleans, happily married to physical therapist Kathy (Vikander) and a loving stepfather to her sweet 7-year-old daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske). Antonio and Kathy have a baby coming, and the money he’s pulling in as a tattoo artist is not enough to support them.

But Antonio has a troubled past, including a pair of felony charges for motorcycle theft. That prevents him from getting a job as a mechanic in an opening scene in which the camera remains on him throughout the dispiriting interview, effectively showing how the system is stacked against people like Antonio turning their lives around. When the unseen interviewer ignores information about his Louisiana upbringing and insists on knowing where he was born, it represents the view of many that immigrants have no right to call themselves American.

Jesse’s biological father Ace (Mark O’Brien) is a local cop who abandoned them years earlier and now wants to be a part of his daughter’s life, despite the fact that she doesn’t know him and feels uncomfortable around him. Ace’s racist blowhard partner Denny (a grating caricature of a bad cop in Emory Cohen’s strident performance) gets involved during a spat in a supermarket that swiftly escalates. This results in Antonio being brutalized and hauled in for resisting arrest, which brings him to the attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a meeting with sympathetic attorney Barry Boucher (Vondie Curtis-Hall), Antonio and Kathy learn that a judge has ordered his deportation, and that despite their marriage, the failure of his adoptive parents to formalize his citizenship, along with his criminal record, gives him few options. He can comply with the order and depart, filing for a change in his status from Korea, or stay and appeal, which is risky since a loss will be final.

This would be more than enough fuel to keep a compelling narrative humming. But Chon stirs in a secondary plotline involving Vietnamese American cancer patient Parker (Linh-Dan Pham), who befriends Antonio and gives him a glimpse of how a family with a shared Asian cultural background might feel. There’s also his return to crime, stealing motorcycles for cash to pay Boucher’s retainer, which distances Kathy and makes her mother (Geraldine Singer) even more determined to get her away from the son-in-law she has never liked. Then there are flashes of Antonio’s earliest memory, which play out in visually pretty interludes involving the tortured decision of his mother (Sage Kim Gray) to give him up for adoption.

There’s so much going on that Chon’s storytelling lacks fluidity. And that’s not including revelations about Antonio’s American childhood, bouncing from one foster home to the next after being rejected by his original adoptive parents; a regular at the tattoo parlor who works for ICE (Toby Vitrano) and tries to help; or the rogue actions of Denny and his roughneck friends to teach Antonio a lesson. It seems implausible that Ace could be so clueless about his beat partner’s morally reprehensible behavior, providing him with a too-easy redemption.

The film’s title comes from the classic Linda Ronstadt hit, which Vikander belts out with creditable vocal chops during a cookout with Parker’s family and friends. That scene and many others establish the depth of the love between Kathy and Antonio, and the heightened emotional stakes of the family’s threatened separation soon after their new baby daughter is born. The story is unquestionably moving, even if Chon slathers on Roger Suen’s syrupy score like a director who doesn’t trust his material.

On one hand, Chon’s efforts to expand the film’s reflections on Asian American identity with the Parker thread are laudable. But there’s also something artificial about the way her looming mortality puts Antonio in touch with painful fragments of his early life in Korea. Parker’s observations about water lilies seeming like they have no roots and yet not being able to survive without them are just one example of dialogue that feels purple and overwritten.

There are welcome quiet moments when Antonio retreats to his favorite spot by the bayou, early on sharing it with Jesse and then later alone. In these scenes DPs Matthew Chuang and Ante Cheng explore the physical beauty of Louisiana, along with shimmering night shots of the New Orleans streets and handsome vistas of the Crescent City Connection crossing the Mississippi. The film has no shortage of visual interest and benefits from an evocative sense of place.

The closing scene goes all out with various characters making mad dashes to get to the airport as the future fate of the family hangs in the balance. These very movie-ish developments feel overwrought and contrived, but the actors nonetheless make the conclusion genuinely affecting. Closing-credits images of the faces of legally adopted people recently removed from the U.S. or facing deportation, detailing their length of time in the country, are a sobering reminder that even if Blue Bayou sometimes lacks nuance, it’s telling a story that needs to be heard.

Full credits

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard) Cast: Justin Chon, Alicia Vikander, Mark O’Brien, Linh-Dan Pham, Sydney Kowalske, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Emory Cohen, Geraldine Singer, Toby Vitrano, Altonio Jackson, Truong Quang Tran, Sage Kim Gray, Susan McPhail, Jacci Gresham Production companies: Macro, Entertainment One Distribution: Focus Features Director-screenwriter: Justin Chon Producers: Charles D. King, Kim Roth, Poppy Hanks, Justin Chon Executive producers: Nick Meyer, Zev Foreman, Clara Wu Tsai, Eddie Rubin Directors of photography: Matthew Chuang, Ante Cheng Production designer: Bo Koung Shin Costume designer: Eunice Jera Lee Music: Roger Suen Editor: Reynolds Barney Casting: Marisol Roncall, Chelsea Ellis Bloch

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The BFG Reviews

Come and meet Steven Spielberg’s dullest lemon and worst dumpster fire. The BFG is a victim of two uneven halves populating a single film.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 16, 2024

“The BFG” is a delightfully heartwarming movie that may push away those looking to have their senses set ablaze by nonstop action and rampant silliness. But for those looking for an intelligent and engaging experience, “The BFG” more than delivers.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2022

For any other filmmaker, this film would be a splendid Dahl adaptation. For Spielberg, it's far less than a dream come true.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 11, 2022

There is genius, as you'd expect.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 3, 2022

It's Spielberg's weakest movie since Hook.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Aug 28, 2021

Whizzpoppers abound, much to the delight of all the kids in the audience.

Full Review | Aug 27, 2021

The BFG reminded me of the scene in (of all things) History of the World: Part I in which a bored Emperor Nero (Dom DeLuise) is presented with a wooden bathtub and mutters, "Nice. Nice. Not thrilling, but nice."

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 18, 2021

The good worth seeking out.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 14, 2021

Spielberg deserves credit for trusting, rightly, that the enduring appeal of Dahl's characters will be enough to make his BFG a big-screen hit.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 9, 2021

The star of "the movie is Spielberg, whose sense of wonder is infused in every frame.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 3, 2021

The BFG is a poignant, casually bold film, unconcerned with what the market research suggests children need and instead giving them what they have always wanted...

Full Review | Jan 6, 2021

Contains plenty of visual magic, but very little movie magic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 4, 2020

As the film's heroine, newcomer Ruby Barnhill is ideally cast. Barnhill's Sophie is both wise old soul and vulnerable young girl.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 3, 2020

Spielberg is big enough to make any picture he wants, but here it seems he's simply going through the motions.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 13, 2020

The BFG isn't a travesty or a tragedy, it simply isn't anything special or memorable. Brilliant visuals aside, there's little warmth or heart or wonder to behold.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 3, 2020

After finishing this fantastic adventure, this great children's event, or whatever, I'm happier than a lottery winner knowing that I will never see it again. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jun 27, 2020

While The BFG is perhaps a lesser Spielberg film, his lesser efforts are better than the best efforts of many others. This is a film of genuine kindness...

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A vivid storytelling piece with vision and fantasy.

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Thankfully, Spielberg's The BFG stays faithful to the treasured Roald Dahl young adult novel with old-fashioned storytelling...

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 23, 2020

The BFG should have been more OMG, and maybe a little more LOL but it's still more than A-OK.

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Red, White and Royal Blue review – bland gay romance opts for beige

Amazon’s adaptation of the hit romance novel about a prince and the US president’s son is well-intentioned yet listless

F or many viewers, there’ll be something charmingly synthetic about Amazon’s milquetoast romcom Red, White and Royal Blue, another film aiming to show that gay love stories can be just as basic and sickly sweet as straight ones. Its overwhelming blandness is sort of the point, a sign of true representation, but vaguely admirable intentions only get the film so far – a win that it exists perhaps, but a loss for those hoping for something better than a Hallmark movie.

The painfully slow rise in gay stories that cater to a broader crowd has given us some crowd-pleasing winners, standout films like Love, Simon, Bros and Happiest Season, showing the importance and pleasure of watching same-sex romance on a bigger canvas, bursting out of the arthouse closet. But the much-anticipated adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s fan favourite novel is closer to last year’s beige weepie Spoiler Alert and the recent tide of queer Christmas movies made for TV or streamers, like Single All the Way and The Christmas Setup, as boringly by-the-books as it comes. This isn’t always a problem within the romance genre, but here it’s never done with enough fizz or feeling for us to invest more than a passing double-screened interest, a plane movie that never takes off the ground.

It’s a what-if love story between Prince Henry of England (Nicholas Galitzine) and Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the US president (Uma Thurman, delivering the most deranged southern accent since Sienna Miller tackled Tennessee Williams ). They go from hating each other to falling in lust to falling in love while forces prevent them from going public, hitting every beat one would expect yet never with more than a light tap, the romantic highs never high enough and the melodramatic lows never really that low.

What’s most curious about something that is otherwise painfully straightforward is when the Tony-winning playwright Matthew Lopez (whose two-part generational epic The Inheritance showed him more than capable of deftly pulling heartstrings), acting as both writer and director, finds himself wrestling between the film it is and the film it could have been. The book was known for its surprisingly explicit sex scenes and while the film is mostly chaste, there’s one sequence, a Truvada reference (!) and some running bawdy jokes that briefly steer it out of safe PG territory to something more risque (the film is strangely, given the genre, an R). Similarly while the film exists in a universe of overly lit, tiny-budget backlot fakery, effort is put into using real news anchors, including Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid, and real newspapers, such as *coughs* the Guardian. One laughable scene also includes the actual White House with a limp marquee, housing the year’s cheapest-looking New Year’s party, in the back garden. These discordant moments are at least interesting when the rest of the film mostly isn’t.

The romance between the two leads goes from slightly rough to very smooth to back again with a little too much ease, the plot never offering us enough juicy conflict despite the circumstance and the two actors failing to give us enough chemistry. Of the pair, Zakhar Perez at least has some charisma, which might be best used elsewhere in the future, but sparks just don’t fly between him and Galitzine in a way that would excuse the film’s formulaic familiarity.

The pressure shouldn’t be on gay cinema, or that of any other minority group, to be somehow more substantive and socially conscious than that of the straight majority, and queer audiences should be allowed to laugh and cry at the same escapist nonsense as the rest. But Red, White and Royal Blue just isn’t the fun, brain-disengaged romp it could have been, any praise going toward intention rather then execution.

Red, White and Royal Blue is out now on Amazon Prime

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About Blue Movie (2009)

Three men, Sagar Singh (Sanjay Dutt), Aarav Malhotra (Akshay Kumar), and Sameer Singh (Zayed Khan), decide to dive underwater to find treasure in a sunken ship named the Lady in Blue. But one of them has a hidden mystery agenda of his own that gets unravelled in the end.

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‘Femme’ Review: Bad Lovers

In this white-knuckle thriller set in London, a drag performer seduces his attacker, an intensely closeted hustler played by George MacKay.

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By Beatrice Loayza

In “Femme,” a white-knuckle erotic thriller directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, the formula of the conventional revenge plot is scrambled. The victim in the film uses his sexuality to break down his attacker, but along the way he develops a dubious affection for his foe that explores the performance of gender and its kinky connection to dynamics of dominance and submission.

By night, Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is a headlining drag performer at a queer nightclub in East London. In the beginning of the film, a few blocks from this sanctuary, he’s brutalized by a thuggish homophobe with neck tattoos.

Months later, Jules heads to a gay sauna where he finds his aggressor, Preston (George MacKay), lurking in a corner. Preston doesn’t know that Jules is the same man he beat up, and the two begin regularly hooking up. Jules’s terrible secret and Preston’s short fuse give the film its underlying current of menace, while jittery, intimate camerawork homes in on the men’s wary, jaw-clenched faces, their bodies seemingly always on the verge of violence.

Jules is weirdly turned on by Preston’s bullish machismo, though he plans to gain the other man’s trust long enough to shoot a sex tape. Outing the intensely closeted Preston is Jules’s intended form of revenge. Preston’s toxic-bro roommates always seem to be hovering when the men plan their trysts, so Jules has plenty of opportunities to blow Preston’s cover. Yet Jules goes through the bulk of the film in a hoodie and slacks (his straight-guy costume), per Preston’s request.

On the one hand, “Femme” makes a lot of effort to humanize its homophobe, played by a stellar MacKay with the defensive swagger of an abused dog. But it’s a questionable focus when the story is ostensibly about a Black man’s rehabilitation and victory over his white abuser. Yet the film avoids a cut-and-dried triumphalism for something more slippery and, perhaps, more meaningful, too: Sometimes vengeance pales in comparison to the realization that your enemy is too small and pathetic to bother kicking around.

Femme Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters.

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G.B.F., an acronym for "gay best friend," isn't exactly OMG material. Not with this rather quaint premise: An accidentally outed teen's companionship is fought over by a highly competitive trio of status-conscious clique queens as if he were a rare Birkin clutch. 

It's not as if director Darren Stein , who treaded similar territory with 1999's " Jawbreaker ", and first-time screenwriter George Northy aren't entirely unaware of this less-than-haute situation. One plot twist actually finds an exasperated character declaring, "What is this, 2008?" Yet when something as highbrow mainstream as "Downton Abbey" boasts a closeted-male storyline, the news that homosexuals are just like us seems about as fresh as reruns of "Modern Family".

Still, once this self-consciously campy fairy tale stops trying so hard to emulate every high-school comedy and TV show from the past 30 years and relaxes into a stream of clever repartee and amusing situations, it eventually offers enough LOL opportunities to deserve a passing grade.

With its fruit-punchy color scheme and bouncy soundtrack, "G.B.F." also earns extra credit for skirting any outright malice in its treatment of the types of characters who typically are the villains (think Rachel McAdams in " Mean Girls ") and allowing them the room to stretch as humans as well.

North Gateway, the suburban academic institution at the center of the story, has no known gay personage among its entire student body. Glad to be under the radar is Tanner (Michael J. Willett, who knows how to work a charming smile), an introverted comic-book geek whose lack of stereotypical fabulousness is milked for much humor. Meanwhile, his more flamboyant friend Brent ( Paul Iacono , as swishy as a feather boa) is angling to make a splash as the first among his peers to announce his preference for other males. Technology foils Brent's plans when the leader of the school's gay-free Gay-Straight Alliance employs a GPS-like phone app to hunt down non-hetero recruits and Tanner, who has posted a photo of his "four-pack" abs on the site to attract a potential beau, gets caught in their net.

The school's three divas supreme—spoiled fashionista Fawcett ( Sasha Pieterse ), drama-club glamazon Caprice ( Xosha Roquemore ) and prissy Mormon princess 'Shley ( Andrea Bowen )—swoop in like well-coiffed vultures to vie for Tanner's attentions, the better to elevate their social profile and possibly secure the title of prom queen. But first, they combine efforts to pump up their new pet's "homosexiness" potential. When he confesses to the girls that he enjoys comics, Fawcett's face lights up: "Like Kathy Griffin ? She's hilarious." Tanner: "No, like comic books." Fawcett, crestfallen: "That's not gay. That's just lame." He submits to their makeover since the powerful threesome provides a welcome shield against any bullying jocks. Meanwhile, Brent seethes with jealousy on the sidelines and plots mild revenge.

There is plenty of fallout—and some solid zingers—prompted by Tanner's big reveal, including a campaign by an evangelical female student to shun the "sodomite" in their midst. "What's a sodomite?" asks the clueless 'Shley. "I think it's like a dust mite," declares 'Topher ( Taylor Frey ), her undercover gay boyfriend, who will soon be hitting on Tanner. "But with sod."

The prom, of course, serves as the finale but with a twist. Since Tanner can't buy tickets if he attends with another guy, Fawcett decides to host an alternative dance. Brent, still an undercover gay, retaliates by joining forces with the traditionalists. It all ends quite sweetly enough. Seems that everyone, even secret science whiz Fawcett, has side of themselves that they keep tucked away.

While the cast is made up of mostly youthful newcomers of varying degrees of ability, a couple of elders also crash the party. Jawbreaker alum Rebecca Gayheart and Jonathan Silverman show up as Tanner's wacky parents, who exist simply to make salacious comments about Mom's homemade gluten-free popsicles. Natasha Lyonne stops by as the adult adviser of the Gay-Straight Alliance. Her cat's name? Anderson Coo-purr.

But leave it to "Will & Grace" graduate Megan Mullally , who certainly knows her way around a gay joke, to take the MVP title as Brent's over-zealously supportive mother. To console her son after Tanner steals his spotlight, she organizes a parent-child night of bonding over such queer cinema classics as " Milk ", " Boys Don't Cry " and, yes, "Brokeback Mountain". Mullally's cheerleader-like narration of the infamous pup-tent encounter ("Heath, don't stand on your pride!") is definitely PDH—pretty darn hilarious.

Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly thirty years at USA TODAY as a senior entertainment reporter. Now unchained from the grind of daily journalism, she is ready to view the world of movies with fresh eyes.

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G.B.F. (2014)

Michael J. Willett as Tanner

Paul Iacono as Brent Van Camp

Sasha Pieterse as Fawcett

Evanna Lynch as McKenzie Price

Megan Mullally as Mrs. Van Camp

Natasha Lyonne as Ms. Hoegel

Rebecca Gayheart as Mrs. Daniels

Jonathan Silverman as Mr. Daniels

JoJo as Soledad

Andrea Bowen as 'Shley

• Darren Stein
• George Northy

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Sasquatch Sunset

A year in the life of a unique family. It captures the daily life of the Sasquatch with a level of detail and rigor that is simply unforgettable. A year in the life of a unique family. It captures the daily life of the Sasquatch with a level of detail and rigor that is simply unforgettable. A year in the life of a unique family. It captures the daily life of the Sasquatch with a level of detail and rigor that is simply unforgettable.

• David Zellner
• Nathan Zellner
• Jesse Eisenberg
• Riley Keough
• Christophe Zajac-Denek
• 2 User reviews
• 22 Critic reviews
• 68 Metascore
• 1 nomination

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Received many walkouts during its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
• Connections References Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 29 minutes

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