Synopsis
Inspired by writer-director Lee Isaac Chungs’ childhood, Minari tells the story of a South Korean family who immigrate to rural Arkansas in the 1980s.
Review
Minari follows Jacob (Steven Yeun) and Monica (Han Ye-ri) and their children Anne (Noel Kate Cho) and David (Alan Kim) after they move from California to a trailer on a patch of unwanted land in Arkansas.
Jacob and Monica are currently working a dull job as “chicken sexers” on a farm – basically looking at chicken butts all day and dividing them up into male and female groups. Jacob wants a better life for them and starts setting up his own farm to grow Korean vegetables, and hires Paul (Will Patton) a deeply religious and slightly eccentric local man as a farmhand. This strains his relationship with Monica who sees all of their savings being (literally) ploughed into the farm and endangering their home.
Soon after, Monica’s mother Soonja (Youn Yuh-Jung) arrives to live with them. Initially, her six-year-old grandson David is afraid of her and complains that she “smells like Korea” and “isn’t a real Grandma” as she doesn’t bake cookies. Instead, she watches wrestling, swears, and plays cards all day, and starts developing a taste for “water from the mountain” – aka Mountain Dew. As good as the adult actors are in this film, credit has to go to Alan Kim’s performance as David. He is at turns hilarious and sweet, and always incredibly natural on screen. Thanks to him, there are far more laughs than you’d expect in a story like this.
Early on in the film, David asks his father why the male chicks at the factory are thrown away. Jacob explains that they are of no use to anyone, and that therefore he and David should “try to be useful”. Small interactions like this throughout the film sum up a universal struggle to provide for your loved ones.
The film’s title Minari comes from a water celery plant that grows well in poor conditions. This is an immigrant story about the desire to put down roots and the willingness to persevere. Actor Steven Yeun noted that the story is not told from any particular gaze, neither white American, nor second-generation immigrants. The story is a ‘slice of life’ which does have a narrative arc, but focuses on the struggles and the joyous moments of a family trying to make a new life for themselves. There are no life-changing lessons learnt about racism or immigration, just a beautiful story, well-told, about one family at a moment in time.
The film has been well-received at Sundance, winning both the Grand Jury and the Audience Award. It is now nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Language Film category, leading many to question why it was not nominated in the Best Picture category when it is American-made and a quintessentially American story. It remains to be seen how it will fare in the Oscar nominations, but do yourself a favour and catch this when it has a UK streaming release on February 26th.
Final Thoughts
A beautiful story that draws you in with nuanced, ordinary moments, Minari is well-deserving of the industry and audience love it has received so far
