Blue Bayou

Antonio LeBlanc tattoos for a living in Louisiana. Born in Korea and adopted at three, he has lived in America ever since. His wife Kathy is pregnant and his stepdaughter Jessie is attached to him. After an argument in a supermarket he is taken into custody, and what he learns there ends his life: his adoptive parents never completed the citizenship paperwork. Legally Antonio is not American and can be deported. The gap the film describes is real: some adoptees raised for decades in the United States are sent to countries they have never seen purely because of missing paperwork. Chon learned about it in 2016 and consulted five adoptees while writing. Justin Chon wrote, directed and plays Antonio; Alicia Vikander plays Kathy. The film drew hard criticism from the adoptee community on release. Adam Crapser, a Korean adoptee deported in 2016, said his story had been used without his consent and that he was never involved in the production, and hundreds signed a call for a boycott. It screened at Cannes and opened on 17 September 2021. Who it is for: anyone who likes American independent drama built on migration and family. Who it is not for: anyone put off by emotional manipulation. The final section plays directly for tears, and the argument over using a real person's story sits on top of the film.