Film Review – Minari (2020)

Home. Four letters, one syllable and laden with meaning.  A word open to almost infinite interpretation and full of endless possibilities for filmmakers. For director/writer Lee Isaac Chung, the focus is one family – another word crammed with nuance – and their pursuit of the American dream in the 1980s.

Minari sees the Yi family re-locate from California to rural Arkansas in pursuit of owning their own land, a long-held dream of father Jacob (Steven Yeung), who yearns for more than spending his days sexing chickens. The fresh start isn’t easy: the Mid West climate is extreme, the locals less than hospitable, their living quarters basic and the farm comes with a dark history, but he’s determined to grow Korean fruits and vegetables to sell to other immigrant communities. And, despite financial disaster always lurking round the corner, he’s convinced he can make a go of it. Grandmother Soon-ja (Yuh-jung Youn) has an alternative plan – growing the weed-like minari on the banks of the nearby river.

Based on Chung’s own childhood experiences, this multi-layered tale of family life, finding a home and, for the two youngsters involved, coming of age is told with an unshowy delicacy and subtlety, drawing us in the everyday life of the Yi’s and the few others closest to them (Will Patton’s evangelical Christian, Paul, in particular) through all those small, but important, details. The children throw paper planes at their parents to stop them quarrelling, little David (Alan S Kim) plays a particularly toe curling practical joke on Grandma – it all flows naturally and we are never less than totally invested. The minari of the title, incidentally, is another of those details but with more significance. Otherwise known as Chinese celery, it grows in abundance in Korea and the seeds imported by Grandma similarly thrive on the riverbank – even when the vegetable crop doesn’t live up to expectations. Like the family, it survives wherever it goes.

And they make a home together wherever they are as well – in this case, a trailer they soon realise won’t withstand the rigours of the Arkansas climate, especially the winter. Wife Monica (Yeri Han) makes little attempt to conceal her disappointment at the state of their new home, but she’s never discouraged from trying to make the best of the situation, even if she’s aggravated by her husband’s constant dreams of a better life. Quiet to the point of restrained, Chung’s story slowly draws you in so that when tragedy strikes you suddenly realise how involved you’ve become with the characters without realising. Much of that is down to the performances from the ensemble, especially Yeun, who was so chilling in Burning, Kim who is boyish mischief personified and Patton who, for all his extremism, is the one person from the town who accepts the family with question.

As a view of the immigrant experience – that search for home and belonging – Minari is, in turns, encouraging but realistic, eschewing anything rose tinted. This is one family trying to find its place in the world in a small town, but it’s a universal experience, making this a 21^st century epic. It’s been winning audiences since receiving the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at last year’s Sundance, and awards nominations have followed from the likes of the Academy and BAFTA, among others. Those nods deserve to be turned into hardware and, even if they don’t, many more will have their hearts captured by the film’s gentle persistence and quiet emotion. A truly beautiful film.

★★★★1/2

Drama | Cert: 12 | Altitude Film Distribution | Video on demand | 2 April 2021 | Dir. Lee Isaac Chung| Steven Yeung, Yeri Han, Alan S Kim, Noel Kate Cho, Yuh-jung Youn, Will Patton.