From award-winning writer-director Justin Chon (Gook, Ms. Purple) comes a moving and timely story of a uniquely American family fighting for their future.
New Orleans tattoo artist Antonio LeBlanc (Justin Chon) is a devoted family man, looking to build a better life for pregnant wife Kathy (Alicia Vikander) and precocious step-daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske). But for an ex-con with a checkered past, opportunity can be hard to come by, meaning money is always tight, especially with a new baby on the way. Complicating matters is Kathy’s ex Ace (Mark O’Brien), a Louisiana cop who wants to play a larger role in Jessie’s life—despite having abandoned the girl and her mother years earlier.
When a family spat unexpectedly leads to a grocery store confrontation with Ace and his racist partner, Denny (Emory Cohen), Antonio is arrested and transferred into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Despite having been brought to America at the age of three, the Korean-American adoptee—who is married to an American citizen—suddenly faces deportation from the only country he’s ever known as home. Trapped in a waking nightmare, Antonio and Kathy seek out legal assistance to help fight the deportation order, only to discover that they have precious little hope of keeping their family together.
With Antonio facing an uncertain future, he finds an unlikely ally and source of support in a Vietnamese-American woman named Parker (Linh-Dan Pham) who also is at a place where she is struggling to come to terms with a difficult truth. Determined to remain near his loved ones, an increasingly desperate Antonio is forced to confront his past, going to ever greater lengths to remain on American soil. But the painful secrets that come to light threaten to upend his relationships with Kathy and Jessie—even as Denny resolves to seal Antonio’s fate.
Blue Bayou comes to theaters on September 12th, 2021.
