Romantic collisions between two misplaced souls of the sort Bedford Park traffics in often have a propulsive tempo that makes their assembly really feel inevitable. Function debut author/director Stephanie Ahn has an eye fixed for the latter however not the previous. The circumstances round Audrey and Eli’s union (Moon Choi and Son Suk-ku, respectively) is tender, but forceful, stunning, but pained; however the movie is in any other case formless, uninspiring and strikes like molasses.
Ahn has a lightweight contact, and the primary act of this staid drama is lovingly noticed and rendered. However issues come up as soon as we’re meant to sink into the burgeoning love her two fundamental characters have for one another, and for themselves. With none correct consideration paid to momentum, it feels not possible to consider there’s any chemistry percolating right here, simply two wayward mid-30s adults whose lives are lower than the sum of its components.
Uneven Performing and Improper Pacing Makes Bedford Park Fall Frustratingly Flat
It does not assist that Son Suk-ku is unconvincing. His Eli is written as a temperamental man-child who has realized aggression the place softness is extra applicable, however Son strikes and acts like he is simply taken a sedative. There are moments the place an emotionally plugged-in actor emerges, notably round his dealings along with his adoptive mom (Cindy Hogan), however he appears extra bothered than intrigued by Audrey’s presence in his life. At no level within the movie’s runtime does it earnestly come throughout like these are individuals who needs to be collectively.
In an admirably pure method, the why of their assembly performs just like the world’s worst meet-cute. Audrey has returned from Brooklyn to Jersey Metropolis to assist maintain her mom, Mrs. Park (Received Mi-kyung), who has damage her wrist after a automobile accident; the small print are in dispute, however the different driver is her neighbor, Eli. Park tells her daughter she needs to kill him with kindness, so she places collectively an elaborate care bundle crammed with Korean items, however the interplay between the three of them at Eli’s entrance door will get heated shortly and spurs on Audrey’s fourth miscarriage.
That is proper, fourth. Audrey is a sexually liberated girl with a desire for dom/sub interactions with folks she meets off an app designed for BDSM relationships. After a childhood accident, Audrey has been instructed that there is lower than a 5% probability she’d ever get pregnant, and so lets unusual males ejaculate into her with out a lot pause. Nevertheless it’s taking its toll. “Miscarriages aren’t contraceptives,” her gynecologist warns. It is unclear if Audrey is hoping she beats the percentages or sees no level in having her companions use condoms.
The sight of Audrey’s instantly bloodied pants brings out a brand new softness in Eli, and he provides to deliver her to the hospital. As a thanks — and maybe as her personal manner of getting away from her drunk and abusive father (Kim Eung-soo) – Audrey provides to turn out to be Eli’s unofficial chauffeur to his job as a mall safety guard and to his lessons at a group school.
Lest it looks like these Driving Miss Daisy moments may be the place their love blossoms, they’re truly principally awkward affairs the place Eli commits to being a sewn-jawed, inexpressive wall. But, being the one different young-ish Korean individual on the block spurs sexual want in Audrey; that, and the information that Eli was as soon as a university champion wrestler.
Each Audrey and Eli have traumatic pasts and unsure futures. What Ahn does do fantastically is present us two individuals who must study to like themselves earlier than they’ll search absolution in one other. Audrey, who has not too long ago been fired from her job as a bodily therapist for the aged, re-takes up her ardour for pictures. Eli, operating from a weird previous in Miami and his fatherly duties in Philadelphia, begins to permit himself to consider teaching the game he as soon as cherished.
It might assist if the movie moved a bit sooner; there are a number of scenes which don’t add both emotional or narrative depth to the proceedings.
When Bedford Park clicks, it’s a candy rumination on communication. The movie is full of all kinds of lies: those we inform ourselves, those we inform others, those we inform in willful deception, those we inform for self-preservation. It may be good to see how these characters navigate their choices, and we see how the specifics of their cultural upbringings forestall them from being totally sincere within the current. When Audrey first provides Eli her driving companies, it’s a completely subtextual interplay, through which neither character is aware of how one can articulate what it’s they actually need.
Nevertheless it by no means turns into convincing that these two folks would need to willingly spend time with one another, and no quantity of handy writerly circumstances supplants that incredulity. It might assist if the movie moved a bit sooner; there are a number of scenes which don’t add both emotional or narrative depth to the proceedings. Ahn’s wistful strategy is helpful in crafting characters we consider, however, not like Audrey’s pseudo job as chauffeur, nothing is driving us ahead.