Chicago International Film Festival Snapshots Coming of Age film
By Dwight Casimere
Director Davy Chou embarks on a somewhat meandering journey of soul-searching and self-discovery by his 25 year old female protagonist, Freddie (a quixotic Park Ji-Min) who returns home to South Korea from her adoptive home of Paris, where she was raised from an infant, in hopes of finding her biological parents who gave her up for adoption.
It turns out that the journey is not without its inherent pitfalls and disappointments and some unexpected detours. Right away, Freddie gets cold water thrown in her face by the adoption agency that teases her with the presentation of her adoption file, yet refuses to give her any substantive information on her birth mother. She instead initiates an emotionless sexual liaison with a young man she meets in a local dive with some old friends.
After several trips back and forth between Paris and Seoul, she gets a lead on the identity and location of her real father, who turns out to be a pitiful drunk riddled with guilt. A lowly plumber who’s managed to eek out a living, he had moved on to have a wife and family in a ramshackle seaside community. Through bitter tears, he begs Freddie to come home to South Korea to become part of his family.
Somewhere along the way, Freddie has a computer dating site hookup with an arms dealer and becomes one of his best operatives. How this has anything to do with the central plot is beyond me, but it made for an interesting plot twist. Somehow in this jumble of plot points and kaleidoscoping time shifts, director Chou manages to weave a lovely narrative that ultimately redeems itself. One mush have patience to navigate the plot twists and language shifts from French to Korean and the sometimes unreadable subtitles, but the acting is earnest and pointed enough that you get the general idea. In spite of its many challenges, Return to Seoul is worth more than a fleeting glance. It is a film that commands your complete attention and emotional involvement. From Aurora Films and Sony Classics in English, French and Korean with English subtitles. SonyClassics.com/film/returntoseoul/.