It’s not anywhere near the top things you should notice when “Bedford Park” goes back in time to reveal a traumatic event for Audrey around the holidays as a child, but the Christmas lights strewn around a largely spare home are a subtle marker of how difficult in general the family had it as immigrants to the States. In the present, her mother and father keep a modest home, but one infinitely improved over time in terms of amenities, the product of a lifetime of hard work that writer/director Stephanie Ahn can speak to with a single cut between the past and now (as well as some savvy production design as well). There’s a novelistic quality to the director’s debut feature when details like this accumulate without much mention but eventually manifest themselves into the decisions the characters make, perhaps appearing irrational if not such a delicately laid path of breadcrumbs.
Ahn’s debut may be about how hard it is to see promise in anything once again after a lifetime of heartbreaks, small and big, but it’s easy to see it all over her raw yet radiant drama, telling the story of two lost souls brought together by a car crash and find even more wreckage as they get to know each other. It isn’t Audrey (Moon Choi) who runs into Eli (Son Sukku), but rather her mother and won’t be able to drive for at least another month as her hand heals. (No one should expect her father to be of much help, spending his evenings drinking a little too much and singing karaoke in his retirement as her mother is expected to go back to work as a cashier.) Audrey can take the time away from her life in the city when she’s a physical therapist, but the trip back home exposes how broken her spirit was by the time she initially spent there when living just above the poverty line put pressure on everyone, fractures that never healed even as her mother and father continued to live under the same roof. It’s telling Eli is of another generation when he could at least cut his losses to some extent before becoming toxic, not feeling obligated to remain in a bad relationship with the mother of his child yet frustrated he doesn’t have the means to provide much support and takes community college classes with the hopes of attaining some sustainable profession.
At first, “Bedford Park” can seem overwhelming with a chaotic opening that wastes no time revealing Audrey’s kinky submissive sex habits amidst a flood of other information, but the style of editing itself tells a story and it sets the tone for a film that proudly doesn’t fit into a box and its characters defy a model minority stereotype of Asian Americans. The result is electrifying as it is messy and though Ahn introduces the element of crime as Eli’s sketchy step-brother (Jefferson White) tries to pull him into some illegal activity, the real thrills comes from Audrey and Eli getting to know each other, overcoming any initial antagonism they feel from the car accident to realize how much the past is holding them back. It is not surprising to learn that the director spent time early in her career under the wing of the late, great Jonathan Demme whose boundless compassion without ever feeling treacly is evident here as well as an ability to get the most from her cast. Choi, in particular, gives an incredibly dynamic performance as Audrey, whose indifference to being liked becomes becomes more and more ingratiating as “Bedford Park” wears on and ultimately, it’s all the rough edges that make it beautiful to behold.
“Bedford Park” will screen again at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25th at 9 am at the Megaplex Redstone, January 28th at 2:30 pm at the Eccles Theatre, January 30th at 6 pm at the Megaplex Redstone and January 31st at 2:15 pm at the Broadway Centre Cinemas in Salt Lake City. It will also be available to stream from January 29th through February 2nd on the Sundance virtual platform.