A large heart on your sleeve domestic drama from this year starring Justin Choi (who also wrote & directed). Choi opens the film trying to get a second job (he's a tattoo artist) since his wife, played by Alicia Vikander (who I think is in the third film I've seen her in, in the last few weeks), is about to have his baby while they're raising her child from her previous marriage (she was married to a cop). He has a checkered past (he's a Korean immigrant who was adopted by shitty parents, has had run-in's w/the law, etc.) & things are looking bleak since he got into it w/the same ex-wife cop & his partner & arrested where he's informed he's primed to be deported even though he's been living in the States since he was three. As the ever increasing, densely plotted narrative marches on (which includes Choi befriending a Vietnamese woman dying of cancer, his inner turmoil in asking his adoptive mother for help, his need to raise money for his attorney, played by Vondie Curtis-Hall, etc.) we are soon inundated by a TV series' season worth of plots that in a 2 hour film gets capsized about an hour in as our Job like protagonist suffers all manner of injustices & obstacles sans floods, locusts & delinquent tax returns. Choi gives it his all but a little less on his plate would've stretched the cinematic meal a bit more evenly.
Review of Blue Bayou
