Return to Seoul

2022 / Rated R
119 min
French/South Korean with English subtitles

This potent drama follows a young woman whose attempts to understand her origins send her on a years-long personal odyssey. Raised by an adoptive family in France, 25-year-old Freddie impulsively flies to South Korea, the motherland she’s never known. A spitfire with a self-destructive streak, Freddie baffles her new Korean friends at every turn, and her motivations for coming to Seoul are a bit of a mystery even to herself. Eventually she takes steps toward finding her birth parents, but instead of bringing Freddie’s identity into clearer focus, the process opens her up to new confusion and new heartbreaks. Following Freddie over several years as her relationship to her homeland and her adoptive county undergo dramatic shifts, the film creates an indelibly specific yet universal portrait of one woman’s struggle to come to terms with herself and who she is. RETURN TO SEOUL is a spectacular voyage for anyone in search of home, or for eternal travelers who already know that it’s not the destination – it’s the journey.