'Minari' film review: Poignant, elegantly crafted immigration story
A Korean family's pursuit of the American Dream starts in a manufactured home propped up on cinder blocks on a barren plot in Arkansas in the immigration drama 'Minari' (opening in select theaters and virtual cinemas starting Feb. 12 and on-demand starting Feb. 26).
In short: A Korean family moves to Arkansas to start a farm in the 1980s. Steven Yeun ('Burning'), Han Ye-ri and Will Patton star.
This immigrant family's story is beautiful in its simplicity and impressive in its intricately complexity. Take a step back and 'Minari' is one family's struggle to start a farm. Upon closer inspection, each individual scene is a beautiful portrait of life in America. It's fundamentally specific to the Korea-American experience - yet rooted in absolutely in universally accessible themes of family, struggle and aspiration.
'Minari' is a layering of conflicts for the first-generation Yi family - from the existential to the marital. Jacob (Yeun) has uprooted his family from the city life in California to rural Arkansas - a move his wife Monica (Ye-ri) is going along with begrudgingly. The film doesn't draw out the marital stress very long, as Jacob and Monica have their first heated argument about their life in Arkansas within the first 15 minutes. Now the livelihood of the Yi family and the very fabric of the marriage hinges on the farm's success.
Audiences should calibrate themselves for a drama that vacillates between the emotional to the mundane. There's a slice-of-life aspect woven into 'Minari' that infuses first-hand insight into how it feels to grow up in the South. Writer-director Lee Isaac Chung's film rings with authenticity and personal experience - and given that the film is set in the 1980s and just how much of the story is seen through the eyes of young David (Alan S. Kim), the film feels very autobiographical. Intimate moments - ones so specific that they seem remembered - are peppered into the story of this family's ups-and-downs.
No summary of 'Minari' could possibly do this poignant, personal work justice. Each scene is steeped in aspiration, frustration and earnest dedication. If one assumes that one day the Yi farm becomes a successful farm, then this film is a loving tribute to all the victories and heartache that Jacob and Monica endured in pursuit of that dream. Alternatively, if the Yi farm is ill-fated to collapse, then 'Minari' still honors the hard work and sacrifice the family made in pursuit of Jacob's dream.
Final verdict: Unassuming and intimate, 'Minari' is arguably one of the most thematically complex dramas of 2020.
Score: 4.5/5
'Minari' opens in theaters Feb. 12. The drama is rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and a rude gesture and has a running time of 115 minutes.
