Mark is a bit of a film geek and when he heard about the movie Minari months ago after it won awards at Sundance, he couldn’t wait to watch it. Movies being what they are during COVID, we checked out the show times and bought “tickets” to watch it at home during a 4-hour window last night. IT WAS SO GOOD. ALL THE STARS. Steven Yeun for Best Actor!
I won’t give away any spoilers, but if you don't want to know anything at all about the movie maybe come back to discuss after you’ve seen it.
What’s it about?
Written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, Minari is about a Korean-American family settling in Arkansas in the 1980s in the hopes of living the American Dream. The big name for us was Steven Yeun (big fans) who plays Jacob Yi, the head of the family. He alludes to a rough life in Korea which is why he and his wife Monica (Yeri Han) took a chance on moving to the U.S. We learn that they used to live in California, sexing chicken for a living. (I never knew that was actually a thing, but they examine chicks and sort them by male or female.)
Jacob wants more than sexing chickens for the rest of his life, so he moves his family to a mobile home in Arkansas so he can start a farm. His plan is to fill a niche, growing and selling vegetables to the growing Korean community in the U.S. It sounds like an awesome idea. However, the American Dream isn’t something that just magically happens. Jacob’s marriage is strained, Monica’s mother (Yuh-Jung Youn) comes to live with them, their youngest—a son named David (Alan Kim…ridiculously cute)—has a dangerous heart murmur, and their pre-teen daughter Anne (Noel Cho) is kind of lost in the middle as she very maturely attempts to navigate a life in which her parents might separate.
Storytelling
Still no spoilers, but definitely a little more detail in regard to themes.
What I loved most about this film was the simplicity of the story. In just under 2 hours, it unpacked the complexity of human relationships, the importance of family, and the fragility of dreams. On the one hand, I was cheering for Jacob who was going to risk everything to make a better life for himself and his family. On the other hand, Monica was being very practical. She just wanted to be part of a community and not sitting isolated on 50 acres of farmland on a house with wheels, hours away from a hospital when her son might need emergency care.
A Story of Compromise
I was intrigued by the various dualities. The most obvious was the husband and wife. They essentially had the same goal: make a better life for themselves. The conflict was that they had different ways in which they wanted to go about it, and what they were willing to sacrifice was not aligned.
The grandmother coming to live with them illustrated another contrast, this time with the son David. As an American-born kid, he’s got his own ideas of what a grandmother is supposed to be like, and those ideas are in stark contrast to what his very Korean grandmother is. Yuh-Jung Youn is fantastic in this role and this grandmother may not even be like “normal” Korean grandmothers. The way the relationship plays out between David and his grandmother is both hysterical and beautiful.
The elephant in the room was the contrast between Korean culture and rural American culture. From the farming aspect to the food to religion, the differences—while not played up—were the things I expected to be slapped in the face with. That said, this film handled it so well.
Not a story of racism
It would have been easy to turn this into a movie about racism. When I saw the trailer and heard “Korean immigrants” and “Arkansas” I figured that was what the struggle was going to be about. Racism is a given. It happens. Everyone knows it. While the film had a sprinkle of scenes that illustrated ignorance, it wasn’t ignorance mired in hate. It was more along the lines of people trying to figure each other out based on what little information they had, and it went both ways. There are good people, and there are bad people. Some good people do bad things, and some bad people do good things. It’s all a matter of perspective.
What was awesome is that no one in the movie seemed closed-minded. They all seemed to watch each other, listen, draw their own conclusions, reflect back on what the other said, and learn. Again, not to say that racism doesn't exist or that ignorance doesn’t hurt people. The film seemed to say that there’s an opportunity for us to be patient with each other, to listen and learn, to grow.
The American Dream
I am a first-generation Filipino-American, and while my life wasn’t anywhere near as difficult as what was portrayed in this film, it still resonated with me on so many levels. There are so many people like my parents who left their homes, risking everything in the hopes of a better life for their families. When I was little, I truly believed that this melting pot of America was a utopia where everyone fed their own cultures and experiences into the American tapestry. These days, things are strained and people seem more intent on being angry and feeding hatred. We need more stories like Minari which show that we’re all just trying to make a better life, and while we don’t always understand each other we should lean towards empathy and try.
Movie image shared from A24.