‘Minari’ grapples with the American dream | Sundance movie review

Minari follows a Korean-American family as the set down roots and builds a farm in rural Arkansas in the 1980s

See all our reviews from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival here.

I can't begin to describe how it feels to have so many Asian-American stories being told through film in recent years. From Lulu Wang's remarkable The Farewell to the delightful Crazy Rich Asians or John Cho in thriller Searching. It feels like each is more personal than the last, and Minari is yet another great entry in that canon. However, that's not to discount it as just another film with Asian leads. It is singular in its story — it is partially based on director Lee Isaac Chung's own life — and style.

Set in1980s rural Arkansas (is that an oxymoron?) — the time period doesn't really play into the narrative — Minari follows the Yi family as they pull up to their new home. The modest trailer, that's missing stairs up to the front door, is set on a large plot of land with no neighbors in sight. The patriarch Jacob (Steven Yuen) is excited by the move from California, where he and his wife Monica (South Korean actress Yeri Han) made a living determining the gender of chickens (sexing is the technical term) for a decade. For him, this move represents a step forward as he's determined to use the five-acre plot to build a farm and start a business. 

Monica isn't quite so ecstatic. All she sees is a waste of space, no community, and a house on wheels. She might have a point too. The couple has two kids, Anne (Noel Kate Cho), a young teen girl seemingly wise for her years, and a curious seven-year-old boy named David (Alan Kim) who is suffering from a heart murmur. Despite her begging and a blow-up argument between them that could marvel the one in Marriage Story, Jacob is adamant that this is where they need to be.

They compromise by bringing Monica's mother (Youn Yuh-Jung) over from Korea to care for the kids while they are at work. Soonja, who hasn't seen her daughter for years, is exactly the foul-mouthed, sassy grandmother we all we wish we had. Upon her arrival, it's clear that David is put off by her — he was born after they moved to the States. She's not the picture of an American grandma. In addition to her crass language, she gifts him a Korean card game that involves gambling (he should learn early, she says), makes him drink a concoction including deer antlers and at one point makes them hike deep into the forest to plant minari, which is a Japanese herb. David also makes it a point to say she smells like Korea.

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However, her presence does ease some of the tension between Jacob and Monica. Jacob has time to get his farm up and running with odd but well-meaning local Paul (Will Patton) and Monica starts to fall into a routine trying to make the house a home and practicing sexing so she can make more money to support the family. She's particularly helped by her mother's presence as outlined in a hilarious scene where her mom shows her all the food and spices she brought from Korea — Monica cries when she sees she brought chili powder. Still, the financial burden of supporting the farm and the constant worry about David's health makes Monica question her husband's priorities. 

Though the plot sounds like it could tread into melodramatics it never actually gets there. There is so much warmth and life in Minari. Chung grounds the movie in something real — since it is his own experience. None of the characters feel like caricatures. Even larger-than-life Soonja and precocious David — their banter is a highlight. And though set in 1980s Arkansas, they experience little overt racism. Instead, we see them suffer from microaggressions, like Monica being called “cute” by some of her fellow church parishioners or a little girl asking Anne if any of the words she's saying are real Korean words before launching into verbal diarrhea that includes the words “ching” and “chong.” None of it is done out of malice and instead ignorance.

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This is the Yi's internal story. In particular, Minari explores identity in the face of struggle and change. Jacob and Monica came to the States to find a better life. Jacob still seeks that out. He feels he's destined for something more. That he owes it to his family to be successful. However, that's the very thing that hurts the family. Monica struggles to find a place in Jacob's dream and in the town they settle in. Soonja learns how to be the “right” kind of grandmother for David. An Americanized one that bakes cookies and doesn't teach him how to gamble. But most importantly, we see the movie largely through David who more than anything wants to be a “normal” kid, even if that's not attainable.

Minari is the kind of movie that wins you over with its sweetness and comedic edge — some of David and Soonja's antics will have you in stitches — but keeps you in with its richly complex themes and characters. It's an irresistible movie. I might even go as so far as to say that this is one of the great families in cinema.

All of it is aided by Emile Mosseri's (coming off last year's The Last Black Man in San Francisco) dreamlike score and cinematographer Lachlan Milne warmly lit cinematography. Whether or not it's meant to feel like a dream is up to Chung to explain. However, it feels like Minari is someone looking back on their life with sadness but ultimately fondness.

The final scene escalates to great heights and ends with an emotional shot of the family that will leave you in tears of happiness. And in the moment before the movie cuts to black I realized how much I'd miss seeing these characters on the screen. I wish I could watch their lives continue to develop and watch them grow. That is how I know Minari is a great movie — perhaps a masterpiece of a family drama.

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Hey! I'm Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I'm also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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