There are some well-known phrases that I just have no time for, and actively warn people against them when I can. The whole idea of “blood is thicker than water” and “you can make friends, but you can’t choose your family”. Ask anyone who has struggled to extricate themselves from a toxic family environment for years, probably decades, and I guarantee you that they were told the same thing over and over again. It’s a genuinely harmful false assertion, and being related to people doesn’t guarantee any life-long strong connection. If you are reading this right now while struggling with someone related, whether it’s a grandparent, parent, sibling, or even an adult child, do yourself a favour and make more distance between you and them. Or remove them from your life altogether. You will soon be able to monitor an improvement in your life.
I am revisiting this oft-visited well once again because of the plot of Return To Seoul, which shows the impact of adoption, and the attempts by one adult (Frédérique aka Freddie, played by Park Ji-min) to reconnect with her birth parents. Having been brought up in France, Freddie impulsively travels to South Korea to seek some answers, and is helped in her journey of discovery by a young woman named Tena (Guka Han). She can only be helped so far though, and the possible resolution will be decided by her parents, contacted by the adoption centre with a request they can acknowledge or ignore.
Mainly written and directed by Davy Chou, his second full-length narrative feature, Return To Seoul is largely informed by the life experience of Laure Badufle, who also helped shape the script, and the central performance from Ji-min, a visual artist making her acting debut. Those involved seem to have a real sense of material that needs carefully handled, and the film weaves between moments of great cinema and moments that show people struggling to communicate everything roiling around inside their hearts and minds.
It’s hard to discuss the most powerful aspect of Return To Seoul without spoiling anything, but let’s just say that the whole film plays thematically on what I just said in the opening paragraph here. A storyline involving adoption is a storyline that can show familial bonds being strenuously tested, as well as showing how that act can reverberate through the lives of everyone involved in the process. It also ponders just how much influence someone should have on your life if they have been absent from it for decades, and how difficult it is to figure out boundaries and relationship standards when there have been no previous examples to compare.
Ji-min is astonishingly good in the lead role, somehow managing to be strong, defensive, vulnerable, and cool all at once. I will be very surprised if she hasn’t already been picked for at least one or two more main movie roles. Everyone else does very good work, especially Han, Oh Kwang-rok (portraying the father who seeks reconnection with, and some understanding or forgiveness from, his daughter), and a surprisingly pivotal character played effortlessly well by Louis-Do de Lencquesaing. but they are all orbiting the shining star that is Ji-min. Kim Sun-young and Yoann Zimmer also deserve a namecheck here, both holding their own in at least one or two scenes that have them, obviously or not, confronted by Ji-min.
Although the score has some lovely motifs here and there, and the visuals throughout are clear and aesthetically-pleasing, this is a film that is very much focused on handling the subject material with maturity and sensitivity. Having picked the best person for the main role, Chou takes viewers on a journey that will prove to be bittersweet and full of small surprises. A couple of time jumps in the narrative may throw some, but they are announced immediately, and allow us to watch the main events in a substantial life chapter that is packed into just two hours. The more I think about it, the harder it is to find any fault.
10/10
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