Minari

(USA / 2020 / Directed by Lee Isaac Chung)

A tender, sweeping story about the things that root us and the things that redefine us, Minari follows a Korean American family who moves from California to Arkansas in the 1980s in search of a dream. Set against the instability of life in the Ozarks, their story casts light on the challenges of constructing cross-cultural identities and the resilience needed to make a foreign place a home.

From its opening shots, Minari beams with subtle wonder. As the Yi family moves to a patch of land they can call their own, Jacob (Steven Yeun) sets to work quickly to establish their new life. His dream is to grow Korean vegetables on American soil, though his wife (Han Yeri) misses city life and voices displeasure over the humble trailer they’re calling their new home. The parents find compromise for the sake of their kids, one of whom suffers health complications that prevent him from being a rambunctious young boy. But their son’s life, and the Yi family’s home, change with the arrival of their sly, foul-mouthed grandmother (Yuh Jung Youn). She has a prankish dynamic with the children, yet she maintains a tender connection that gets through to them. In loving, cross-cultural statements, she shows her grandson minari, an easily cultivated herb used in Korean cooking; he gets her hooked on Mountain Dew. Together, each member of the family represents different aspects of identities left behind in Korea and in California, and each is learning to be who they are in their new environment. There’s so much beauty in that process, and Chung’s film relays it with tender prowess. When we are uprooted, we replant. And like minari, we can regrow in even the most foreign environments.

PG-13 / 1 hr 55 mins.