Cannes Review: Davy Chou’s ‘Return To Seoul’
22.05.2022 - 14:59
/ deadline.com
An adoptee explores her Korean roots in Return To Seoul, Davy Chou’s engaging drama premiering at Cannes in Un Certain Regard. Newcomer Park Ji-Min plays the magnificently complex Freddie, who was raised in France and has impetuously decided to spend a couple of weeks in the country of her birth.
There, Freddie befriends the first person she meets: Tena (Guka Han), who works at the funky little hotel Freddie is staying in. Tena gently encourages Freddie to visit the adoption agency, who offer to contact her birth parents. But Freddie’s encounters with her father aren’t easy.
The film then enters its second act, picking up on her life years later, while a third act continues her story, rather than concluding it. This is not a tale of harmonious endings, but an exploration of a character trying to come to terms with her past.
Park Ji-Min is an artist who was recommended for the role of Freddie by Chou’s friend, and then played a part in shaping the character. She does a terrific job. Mercurial, blunt, charismatic and often rude, Freddie is the kind of young woman you see more in real life than on screen. If she were sexualized and/or the object of a hero’s affections, she might be a Manic Pixie Dream girl, but thankfully she’s not.
There’s an electric scene in the first act where Freddie suddenly decides to bring strangers together in a restaurant-bar, putting them all on the same table and enjoying the results. She often breaks the conventions of etiquette and defies Korean tradition, something her birth family finds difficult.
Her biological father (Oh Kwang-Rok) is also fascinating: riddled with guilt, often drunk and tearful. Neither of them have a language in common, so it’s down to Tena to translate, or for