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Sophie (Vera Farmiga) would have the perfect life if only she and her successful husband Andrew (David McInnis) could have a baby. Andrew is the child of Korean immigrants, and family is everything to him, but no number of fertility treatments can change the fact that he's the one that's the problem. At the clinic, Sophie overhears Jihah (Jung-Woo Ha), a young Korean man, being rejected for sperm donorship because he's illegal. Sophie follows Jihah to his apartment in Chinatown and makes him a bold offer. "I'll give you $300 every time." He doesn't understand at first. "$30,000 if I get pregnant. Now do you understand?"

Never Forever from writer/director Gina Kim is a marvelous film, a haunting meditation on love, desire, and hope, with a radiant central performance from Farmiga, in a role that couldn't be more different from the cocaine addict she played in Debra Granik's Down to the Bone. Farmiga looks like a toy, spindly little legs peeking out from under bell-like skirts that evoke Dior's New Look. Behind her large, scared, bluer-than-blue eyes Sophie has steel she doesn't know he has. She doesn't want to be this strong, and surprises herself by how far she's willing to go in her determination to make things better for the husband she genuinely believes she loves.

Although the shooting style at times evoked typical 90s indie, with artfully unsteady handheld shots and a muted score, the script has far more baroque aspirations. It could be a lost Fassbinder film, of a piece with Ali: Feat Eats the Soul and Fear of Fear. Sophie's journey is deeply internal and the mode pure melodrama of the very best kind. Her final decision has weight and importance because Kim doesn't let herself use the easy language of irony. Instead, she lets emotion and passion fuel the film, and the result is a small masterpiece.