Film review: Broker is a black farce with a heart of gold
Broker
- Broker
- ★★★★☆
(15A) opens in Busan, South Korea, with teenage mother So-young (Ji-eun Lee) depositing her new-born baby at a ‘baby box’ in a Christian church, where it is quickly rescued by Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho) and Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won). So-young leaves a note vowing to return for her baby, but Sang-hyun and Dong-soo are shocked when she actually follows through on her promise, and not least because they are a pair of criminals – baby brokers – who have already a buyer lined up for baby Woo-sung.
With cops and gangsters hot on their trail, the quartet embark on a road-trip to find a deserving couple who will give Woo-sung the loving home he deserves … Written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, Broker comes on like a cuddly take on the Coen Brothers’ style: the hapless criminals are nowhere as smart or callous as they like to believe, and the quirky scenario – once we’re assured that baby Woo-sung is in good hands – quickly becomes a hugely enjoyable black farce.
Having lured us in with the wacky premise, however, Hirokazu Koreeda gradually allows his characters to develop into fascinatingly tragic figures who all crave the ideal of a conventional family life. It’s a terrific ensemble cast, with the three leads fully persuasive as a dysfunctional alternative family, and the overall effect is only spoiled by some unnecessarily sentimental missteps in the final act. (cinema release)
