Broker
If “Broker” doesn’t land quite as hard as Hirokazu Kore-eda’s films like “Shoplifters” and “Nobody Knows,” it’s because its main characters are ultimately doing something demonstrably more awful than anyone in those films does. Having said that, “Broker” isn’t asking that we judge the actions of Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo any less harshly than we would someone involved in their “business” in real life; but, by giving us a chance to spend time with them and see their lives, we might empathize with them as people.
The film begins with a young mother, so-young (Ji-eun Lee), going up to a church, telling the baby she has with her goodbye, and putting him in a “baby box.” The hope, in her mind, is that they will find a family to adopt her young son, Woo-sung. The church, however, is not going to have Woo-sung for long, though; on duty is Dong-soo (Dong-won Gang), who removes Woo-sung from the box, and erases the footage of his placement. Every once in a while, Dong-soo and his partner, Sang-hyeon (Song Kang-ho, brilliant as always) by-pass the bureaucracy of government adoption procedures, and take a baby left on Dong-soo’s shift, and sell it to a couple willing to pay them. When so-young comes back to the church, second-guessing her decision, they are caught, but we see that she might be willing to help them find Woo-sung a home. She might not be the only people onto what they’re up to, however.
Kore-eda is fascinated by the dynamics of families when faced with duress. Sometimes, they find themselves isolated from society because someone shirks their responsibilities (“Nobody Knows”). Sometimes, they are brought together by someone who comes into their lives (“Shoplifters”). Others, we see families at odds with one another (“The Truth”). Here, we see an impromptu family come together by circumstance. Regardless of what we think of the how they came together, and what Dong-soo and Sang-hyeon are doing, they have the same aim as so-young in this film- to do what’s best for Woo-sung. We can be horrified that they are basically involved in human trafficking, but we can also see, as they go from prospective client to client, that they care about Woo-sung’s well-being as well. Some of their decisions come from feeling like they are being set up- and that’s definitely the case with one couple- but ultimately, we see that they aren’t simply doing this for money. This is something that the detectives (Bae Doona and Lee Joo-young) who are tailing them do not initially consider- they’re just looking at the legality of the actions, as they should. How we see this all unfold is where Kore-eda proves himself a master of humane stories about the struggles of life, and how- even when we see something one way at the start- our perception of why people do things should not be snap judgements. This is about seeing people, in all their complexities, and recognizing that, even when they seem to be doing something we disapprove of, their heart might be in the right place. “Broker” might actually land as strongly as those others do, after all.
