Respond to these rapid questions in our Finding You quiz and we will tell you which Finding You character you are. Play it now.
There is a widespread assumption of biological familial connections between people. When filling out paperwork at the doctor’s office, you’ll be asked about your family’s medical history. Well-wishers frequently make observations about whether a child resembles one parent more than the other. As well as questions about where someone is from, really, or where someone is from originally, any ethnic or racial difference between generations of a family can lead to suspicions about their origins. Amanda Lipitz’s documentary “Found” addresses a variety of issues related to adoption, some of which are predictable while others are unexpected. It fits into this landscape in a variety of predictable and unpredictable ways.
In “Found,” Lipitz paints a portrait of the consequences of China’s former one-child policy, which was in place for nearly 40 years with a number of modifications, on people both inside and outside the country, including in the United States. From 1979 to 2015, over 150,000 children, mostly girls, were adopted from China, according to an intertitle, but the documentary is devoid of official data or a critical analysis of the phenomenon. There is a dearth of information on how many children ended up in the United States, how the policy was implemented differently in different areas and economic classes in China, and the long-term societal consequences of a policy that, for many families, resulted in the prioritization of boys over girls. Experts on China’s population planning, fertility rate, and economic transformation are also conspicuously absent from the meeting.
As opposed to this, “Found” is devoted to exploring the interpersonal relationships and economic opportunities resulting from this policy, which resulted in children being anonymously abandoned on street corners, on building stairwells, and under trees because their parents could not afford to care for them or could not afford the many-thousand-dollar government fee they would be required to pay in order to retain custody. “Nannies” and the dozens of children they cared for, researchers who work to find birth families and the curious adoptees who hire them, and various relatives in birth families, all of whom are on the lookout for the children they gave away, are all depicted in Lipitz’s film. The goal is intimacy rather than evaluation, and as a result, the film “Found” follows three American teenage girls who were adopted from China and who discover through DNA testing that they are cousins. They live in different parts of the United States, are slightly different ages, practice different religions, and have differing opinions about their biological parents and their country of origin. They are also from different ethnic backgrounds. And Lipitz, by following the girls and their families over a period of several months, allows their diverse opinions—often at odds with one another, but also sometimes at odds with themselves—to serve as the primary focus of the documentary.
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What is it like to grow up with a physical appearance that is different from your parents? To have your classmates inquire as to how you manage to be both Asian and Jewish at the same time? Why would you want to watch home videos of your childhood spent in an orphanage that you don’t remember and being surrounded by women who speak a language you don’t understand? These are the questions that Chloe, Sadie, and Lily have wrestled with individually, and they have found solace and solidarity in each other’s struggles. The girls get to know each other through months of video chats, which Lipitz uses to share their personalities and allow them to talk about their questions, regrets, fears, and curiosities with each other. They talk about their college plans, about the boys they like, and about how much of their Chinese culture they want to explore—or whether they have any affinity for it in the first place—with the candor and naiveté of youth.
Finding You Quiz
When Lily, who is about to begin college and who was raised by a single mother, expresses an interest in locating her biological father, her mother becomes increasingly concerned. Despite her desire to have jaw surgery, she is conflicted about the decision and wonders whether reshaping her jaw line is in any way a betrayal of her birth parents’ genetics. The search for Chloe’s biological family is uninteresting to her, but she is determined to learn Mandarin in addition to the Hebrew she already knows from her Jewish family. As well as admitting that she has no connection to her mother’s extensive Irish background—”Technically they have no ties to me”—Sadie also mentions that her friends refer to her as “the whitest Chinese person.” Sadie and Lily are both open to the possibility of finding their biological parents. The girls decide to embark on a Chinese ancestry tour together, which brings them into contact with Liu Hao, a research officer based in Beijing. ‘You can find the peace in your heart,’ Liu claims once you understand your origins, and she considers herself to be something of an amateur detective, piecing together the puzzle pieces of people’s pasts. While her interactions with birth families are infused with an atmosphere of resignation and tragedy, it is Liu who guides the teen cousins and their parents through a series of revelations and disappointments once they arrive in China.
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Finding You quiz.
“Found” makes a suggestion that some adoptees may find narrow-minded, similar to the one made in the 2016 biographical film “Lion,” that a child who finds their birth parents will also find themselves. On the one hand, this suggestion is similar to the one made in the 2016 biographical film “Lion,” and it may be considered narrow-minded by some adoptees. Making the erroneous assumption that all adoptees would automatically believe in the self-fulfillment of reunion will inevitably result in some adoptees’ opinions being forgotten. But, on the other hand, “Found” does an excellent job of putting us in the shoes of these three young women and documenting their changing perceptions of themselves. While there’s a thought-provoking contrast between Chloe’s admission that she’s feeling increasingly unfulfilled by the bubble of white people in which she grew up and Sadie’s admission that “I’ve just always identified myself as an American,” the film’s strength comes from its willingness to let every single young woman express herself without fear of being judged.
About the quiz
‘Found’ will be available in limited theatrical release starting on Wednesday, October 13, and will be available to stream via Netflix starting on Wednesday, October 20.Also, you must try to play this Finding You quiz.
For more personality quizzes check this: Voyagers Quiz.
