I checked out a 2021 movie called Blue Bayou on Amazon Prime Video with Freevee and it’s one of the saddest films I’ve seen in some years.
When a film manages to make you bawl your eyes out uncontrollably, you know the filmmakers and cast have achieved something truly rare. Movies like Dancer In The Dark and Lilya 4-ever have reduced me to floods of tears in the past, but the latest movie to leave me feeling shattered was one I came across recently on Amazon Prime Video, showing as part of Freevee, a channel you can access for free with ads. By the end of the two hours, I was a wreck, and yet, I seriously can’t recommend Blue Bayou enough…
What is Blue Bayou movie about?
Blue Bayou was released in 2021 and was directed by and stars Justin Chon, an American actor and filmmaker who Twilight fans may remember for playing Eric, one of Bella’s classmates in the vampire-romance saga.
Serving as his second directorial feature, Blue Bayou sees him play Antonio LeBlanc, a Korean-American adoptee and tattoo artist living with his pregnant wife Kathy (played by Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander) just outside of New Orleans.
He struggles to find and hold down work due to a criminal record, but his future in the United States is challenged like never before when he’s taken into custody by ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and told that his adoptive parents never naturalized him: in translation, he faces being deported.
An appeal is launched, but if he fails to meet the conditions he’ll never be allowed to return to the US again. Plagued by expensive retainer fees and the sense of everything he loves slipping away from him, Antonio’s ordeal is unforgettable and ultimately a heartbreaking account of a man desperately trying to preserve his family.
As it’s a recommendation, I won’t give spoilers, but the final act is as powerful as any I’ve seen in the past few years—at least. It’s a very little-known film, but of the two people I’ve personally recommended it to who watched it, I’ve received messages straight after about how it reduced them to a puddle of tears too.
The movie’s concluding gut punch is masterfully done, but overall, it’s simply a fantastic film with so much heart. It currently has a 75% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, a rating that’s not low exactly but fails to do just how great it is justice. An unmissable movie.
Alicia Vikander on Blue Bayou
Like Justin, Alicia is phenomenal in the film and it’s one of the best films of her filmography for me, impressive when the likes of Ex Machina and The Green Knight are part of the conversation.
She previously spoke with Vanity Fair and the interviewer accurately described the ending as “very super intensely emotional,” and was asked how the team managed to build up to something so affecting.
“We shot that scene right in the end,” she explained. “By that point, we had a quite close relationship naturally between us. So it was very easy to just rely on that. Not have to come into that scene with too much thought or intention and instead just be in the moment and let it play out what feels the most natural.”
You should seek it out, but please, make sure tissues are on deck. You’ll need them.
Blue Bayou is now streaming as part of Freevee on Prime Video.
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