Baby Broker

My first and very enjoyable encounter with Kore-eda. It has elements of road movie, detective story, comedy and family drama. A young mother abandons her child at a baby box, the child is then taken in by two men, Sang-hyun and So-young, with the intention of selling him or her. The very next day, however, the young mother returns for her child and joins the two men in their search for suitable buyers or surrogate parents. All this is observed from afar by a pair of policewomen who intend to catch the middlemen in the act. Their journey together is full of humour, but also very poignant. Child abandonment is a very strong and controversial topic with two sides, and this film manages to offer the perspective of both: the one who abandons, but also the one who has been abandoned. We get to know the inner motives of the protagonists, and the initial condemnation that certain characters and the viewer feel towards the young mother, but also towards the middlemen, gradually turns into compassion and understanding. Broker is kind, human, full of emotion and empathy, full of sadness, but at the same time a caress to the soul. (13.03.2023)