As he has done in so many times before, such as in Nobody Knows, Like Father, Like Son, and, most similarly, in 2018’s Palme d’Or winning masterpiece, Shoplifters, Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda again explores this question of family in his new film Broker. And, as in those other movies, he seems to argue that your family are not necessarily those to whom you are bound by blood. Instead, your family are those to whom you are bound by love, regardless of the circumstances that pulled you together.

The setup doesn’t sound like the stuff of sympathetic family dramedy: Sang-hyun (2022 Cannes Best Actor and star of Parasite Song Kang-ho) and Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won) are Korean baby traffickers who steal babies left in a church “baby box” (mothers who cannot raise their children can leave their babies there) to sell to parents who cannot easily adopt through official channels. One mother, So-young (Lee Ji-eun) shows back up for her baby just as the men are ready to make a sale. Instead of calling the police–who are already on their trail–So-young insists on going with them to sell the baby. Of course, complications ensue, and the crime becomes a long group road trip. During that trip, we get insight into the motivations of the traffickers. Dong-soo was raised in an orphanage, having also be abandoned by a mother who claimed that she was never coming back, and seems to be motivated by a desire to improve the lot of these children. Sang-hyun has gambling debts, but also a past suggesting that he also has more altruistic motives. After a visit to the orphanage Dong-soo grew up in, the crew picks up a young stowaway. With our new “family” intact, they grow together even as the extremely difficult circumstances that drew them into this unlikely group threatens to tear them apart again.

A Kore-eda film is one of great humanity, tenderness, and love. And Broker is no different. Each member of our new family gets their opportunities to share their hearts and serve the other in some way. They manage to find ways to do “family things” like go to a theme park even as they keep trying to find a suitable buyer for the baby. The three adults of the group–each of which has reasons to live only to advance their own cause–find themselves willing to sacrifice for the good of each other. That human touch even extends to the police detectives chasing them. Doona Bae (Cloud Atlas) is the harder-edged, more driven detective leading the charge. Yet, as the movie enters its third act, we see even her shell start to crack. As we reach the end, we get the glimpse of hope, but don’t know if that hope can really come true. But what we do know is that each of these people have been changed for the better by their love for each other–a reliable marker of a real family.

Broker is in theaters.

(Photo credit: NEON)