A GRADE

When Alicia Vikander first started out, people would often assume that she was British. The Swedish actress had appeared in several period dramas and her flawless English accent was so convincing that she had everyone fooled. “I played a few royals,” she laughs over Zoom. “They thought I was from a very high-class background.”

Since then, she’s enjoyed a diverse and eclectic career, but her own working-class roots have remained largely untapped in her films. “I’ve wanted to tell those stories but people don’t offer me those roles.” Until now that is. In Vikander plays Kathy, the pregnant wife of Antonio (Justin Chon, who also writes and directs), a Korean-born adoptee facing deportation from the US due to a legal loophole even though he was brought there when he was three. Their relationship becomes increasingly strained as the ex-con tattoo artist, a loving stepfather to Jessie (Sydney Kowalske), is forced to revert back to his old ways