Review: Minari

Image courtesy of A24.

       
Lee Isaac Chung's "Minari," a huge hit at last year's Sundance Film Festival (and it's easy to see why), is a film that personifies the description "bittersweet." This lovely - and often very funny picture - tells the story of a Korean family that relocates from California to rural Arkansas in the 1980s as its patriarch, Jacob (Steven Yeun), chases his dream of starting a farm where he'll grow Korean vegetables and sell them to big city markets.

We learn early on that Jacob's family - which includes wife Monica (Yeri Han), pre-teen daughter Anne (Noel Cho) and adorable young son David (Alan Kim), who has a weak heart - struggled in California because Jacob and Monica worked in chicken sexing - a process involving the determination of a young chick's sex - and while Jacob was fast at the job, Monica wasn't as talented.

Monica isn't impressed by the vacant plot of land in the middle of nowhere that Jacob has purchased for the family, and she has difficulty believing that his plans for a farm will be a success. Several other characters enter the family's orbit - including Paul (Will Patton), a deeply religious man with offbeat habits, which include him dragging a large cross down a country road every Sunday, who becomes Jacob's assistant at the farm, and Soonja (Yuh-Jung Youn), Monica's mother, who moves from Korea to come live with the family.

Soonja is a character, to say the least, and she's one of the film's two most memorable characters - the other being David. She (lovingly) calls her opponents - typically her grandchildren - "bastards" when playing them at cards, enjoys watching pro-wrestling and doesn't do, as David points out, typical things you'd expect from a grandmother. It's the relationship between the young boy and his grandmother that is the best part of a movie that's overall very good.

At first, David doesn't trust Soonja, and he even plays a prank on her that many might have a difficult time getting over, but she takes it in stride. Telling David - whose heart problems leave Monica and Jacob uneasy about his wandering far from the house - that he's stronger than he thinks, Soonja often takes the boy down to the river to plant minari, a type of water celery, by a creek bank. Their budding friendship is among the funniest and sweetest of any film of recent memory. And as David, Kim gives one of the most delightful and best child performances I've seen in some time.

The film isn't always as jolly as that duo's relationship. Jacob struggles in his farming, David's health problems are ever present and Monica and Jacob's relationship is often strained - near the film's beginning, they scream at each other while their two children throw paper airplanes with "Don't Fight" written on them into the living room where the argument is taking place. But the film goes about its sadness with gentleness, and never becomes the tragedy I often feared it could be.

"Minari" follows some of the typical beats of the immigrant-in-America story, but its offbeat sense of humor, great characterizations and strong performances and quirky story make it uniquely satisfying. This is a truly winsome little movie featuring a great cast as well as strong writing and directorial work. For a small independent film with primarily unknown cast members, it has garnered a lot of attention - and that's because it's very good.