THE STORY – Audrey struggles between loyalty to her Korean immigrant family and her own American identity, as a child raised in New Jersey. When she meets Eli, an ex-wrestler battling his own fractured past, they journey through an unexpected relationship and create a bond navigating self-preservation, cultural pressures, and chosen love.
THE CAST – Moon Choi, Son Suk-ku, Won Mi Kyung, Kim Eung Soo, & Jefferson White
THE TEAM – Stephanie Ahn (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 119 Minutes
In her feature debut, Stephanie Ahn offers an evocative portrait of the immigrant experience, moving beyond surface observation to investigate the visceral, internal world of children raised in the crosshairs of cultural expectation and personal identity. Premiering at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, “Bedford Park” is a quietly effective drama that investigates how we collide with others in our lowest, most fractured moments, and how that collision can be the catalyst for finally finding a way to exhale. Ahn does this by dissecting the Korean concept of “Han” – a deep, internalized sorrow, conveyed with great weight by the film’s two leads, that’s not just personal, but a collective, accumulated pain passed down through generations.
We are first hit with the sounds of a subway train as we meet Audrey (a tremendous Moon Choi) on a commute. She wears a distant look and heavy headphones, drowning out reality with music. She’s on her way to meet a man for a casual evening of BDSM, an encounter she knows will hold no real significance. There’s a haunting blankness in her eyes. She just wants to feel something, anything, to puncture the numbness. This desperation manifests in more self-destructive ways, from the old self-harm scars on her stomach to the cold reality of a doctor’s office where she forces yet another miscarriage. She destroys her body in search of an end to her own pain, looking for a release she cannot name.
When she’s working as a physical therapist, we see brief flashes of a more open version of herself, but the headphones always return, a shield against a world she finds suffocating. This stems from a childhood framed in the myth of the American Dream through Audrey’s father (Kim Eung-soo), a man whose misery as a grocery store worker, compared to his corporate past in Korea, fueled the alcoholism that fractured his family. Their home dynamic is a sharp observation of the conflict between Korean tradition and American identity; she’s a woman raised in New Jersey who lived in a home where, when her father came home, there was silence and fear. A father’s internalized rage over his diminished status in America creates a poignant observation of the immigrant home as a suffocating space where children are forced to erase their American selves to soothe the generational wounds of their parents.
This story is two-fold as focus shifts to Eli (Son Sukku), a former wrestler whose glory days have evaporated into life as a security guard. Like Audrey, Eli is running from his own history of family abuse, marked by a literal burn scar on his back. He provides for a daughter he loves, yet lives states away from her, protecting himself with walls of stoic silence. When these two stories collide following a car accident involving Audrey’s mother (Won Mi Kyung), the result is sweet and surprising. After a tense exchange over insurance and fault, Eli’s tough exterior melts when Audrey unexpectedly begins to have a miscarriage at his door. In catching her in this state of vulnerability, their shared journey toward healing begins.
The film is most powerful in its quietest moments, when Audrey and Eli sit in each other’s presence. Ahn’s dialogue offers deep moments of conversation that allow the characters to open up and play into their chemistry, particularly during the car rides where Audrey helps Eli get to work and college classes. These commutes are what drive their relationship forward and begin the healing of their individual scars. The film’s pacing can be slow, but broken people need time to connect.
Audrey, who had long ago abandoned her passion for photography, pulls out her old Nikon to snap a picture of Eli. In return, she encourages him to return to the ring. Relationships like these need to be captured slowly, awarding moments that are much more fulfilling. There’s a standout scene involving the “Rocky” score that allows Choi to tell a whole story with her expressions while she is slowly brought to tears. In the same vein, Eli, in a moment of reprieve from the world, eyes closed, follows the movements of the score with his hands. Both are affected differently by the music, but they’re linked in the moment, much like many aspects of their lives.
While the film’s momentum is occasionally hindered by a convoluted subplot regarding Eli’s family, the emotional core remains unshakable. “Bedford Park” is the kind of raw, humanistic drama that investigates the place inside us where our most vulnerable selves live. Yet, Ahn offers a path forward from trauma through the relationship built between Eli and Audrey. He asks her if “Han” is voluntary or a choice, suggesting that, while trauma is inherited, healing can be intentional. By the end of the film, as Audrey navigates the loyalty she owes her family versus the life she wants for herself, the message is clear. When she is with Eli, the soundtrack of reality is no longer something she needs to drown out. With him, she can finally breathe.
