Sean Penn’s “Flag Day” has got nothing, and I mean nothing, on Justin Chon’s Cannes-premiered “Blue Bayou.” Here is a film so on-the-nose and embraceful of its mucky sentimentality that if it were in competition this year then it would have absolutely been booed by press.
The film stars Alicia Vikander and Chon himself as a married couple in small-town Louisiana whose lives get thrown into chaos when Chon’s character, Antonio, is snatched up by ICE due to his previously unknown issues with immigration.
Having been brought up into the US at the age of 3 and adopted by Americans, his fight against possible deportation is no doubt relevant to today’s zeitgeist, but topical resonance does not make a great movie. Chon interjects his narrative with Chon’s sudden meet and friendship with a Vietnamese American terminal cancer patient (Linh-Dan Pham), his rivalry with his wife’s former husband and the struggles he has to maintain a job.
It’s all directed with next level self-importance by Chon, who broke out at Sundance 2017 with “Gook,” but he’s in over his head here. The screenplay is melodrama at its worst, filled with cliches and strained moments that painstakingly try to activate our tear ducts.
It’s not like Chon is a bad filmmaker. There’s a nifty motorcycle heist (don’t ask) shot to tension-filled perfection, it almost feels as though the director is auditioning to helm the next Fast and the Furious flick. Alas, the drama doesn’t work as well. There’s a climactic scene at an airport with various characters overacting and running to save Antonio from getting ICE-ed back to Korea. It’s all adds up to just too much.
Even if a story like this one deserves to be told, the way Chon hammers down his messaging and pat storytelling is as subtle as Paul Haggis’ “Crash.”