This documentary, taking emotional cues from the teenagers at its center, is smart, illuminating and tender.
A nanny at an orphanage in China’s Guangdong Province speaks of the infants she cared for over the years. “My heart ached whenever I sent a baby away … What was to become of them?” Amanda Lipitz’s adoption documentary “Found,” rife with poignant moments, provides not one simple answer to that plaintive question but three beautifully complex ones — in the cousins Chloe, Sadie and Lily, who travel to China from Arizona, Tennessee and Oklahoma.
When we meet Chloe, she is at her bat mitzvah, her parents beaming. Before that gathering, Chloe (the filmmaker’s niece) had already met Sadie, via 23andMe, a consumer genetics testing company. Through its website, the two located Lily. The teenagers (with ample parental support) embark on a journey to learn the facts of their origins and perhaps locate their birth parents.
The documentary finds a sympathetic character in a researcher, Liu Hao, who leverages her genealogical sleuthing skills on behalf of adoptees. She is based in Beijing, and she is upfront, explaining that her work seldom leads to genetic matches. Searching is a tender undertaking — for the teenagers and their parents, who are white, as well as for their potential birth parents. While the young women harbor overlapping questions, “Found” makes it clear they also have yearnings unique to them.
In one scene — endearing for its mix of the casual and the deep teenagers are so good at — Liu shares with Sadie news of where she was found before being taken to the orphanage. “That’s so cool,” Sadie replies, then thinks again. “Not cool but awesome.” If by awesome she means staggering and wondrous, then the journey in self-discovery she, Chloe and Lily share in “Found” is awesome indeed.
Found
Rated PG. In English and Mandarin with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
