Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Minari’ on VOD, an Extraordinary Comedy-Drama About Korean Immigrants Planting Their Roots in America (2024)

By John Serba@johnserbaFeb 26, 2021 at 2:30pm

Minari debuted at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, inspiring a year’s worth of acclaim and slow-building anticipation prior to its release on VOD platforms, here in the heart of awards season. It’s writer/director Lee Isaac Chung’s story of a Korean immigrant family starting a farm in rural Arkansas, loosely based on his own childhood experiences in the 1980s. Steven Yeun of The Walking Dead and Burning fame, and likely breakout star Yeri Han anchor the movie, which brims with authenticity. I foresee Oscar nominations in its near future.

MINARI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Jacob (Yeun) is very excited about dirt. Not just any dirt, but this dirt, on the rural Arkansas land he just purchased. His dream is to grow Korean vegetables and sell them to the rapidly growing Korean immigrant population in Oklahoma. His wife, Monica (Han), is not enthused about the dirt. She needs convincing, but that’s an uphill battle. They’re moving the family into their new home, an ugly trailer in the middle of nowhere. They used to live in the city in California, and Monica liked it there. Here, there’s plenty of room for their two children to play, but it’s cruel irony, considering their youngest, David (Alan Kim) shouldn’t tax himself physically due to a heart condition. There’s also so much distance between the family and any other human beings — and, Monica notes, the hospital, should David need emergency medical care.

But Monica endures. She knows this is Jacob’s passion, even if she doesn’t really understand it. They visit the bank for a loan, and are greeted kindly. They get the same job they had in California: sexing chickens. You know, you pick up the chick, peer at its butt, and toss females in one bin, males in another bin. They have to take David and his older sister Anne (Noel Cho) to work with them. David asks why there’s smoke coming out of a big chimney, and Jacob says, well, the male chicks don’t lay eggs and don’t taste good, so that’s what happens to them. Monica is happy to see fellow Korean immigrants also stare at chicken butts for a living, although Jacob hopes it’s a temporary career. Nobody wants to sex chickens forever. A brass ring must be grasped at.

Jacob begins working the land. He turns down a $300 estimate from a water diviner to find a well, muttering something about crazy Americans, then showing David how to use logic and reason to find the low spot on the property and dig for water. He buys a tractor, and the grubby fella who delivers it, Paul (Will Patton), says he could help Jacob cultivate the soil. Paul prays in tongues and prescribes an exorcism on the land because something bad happened there before Jacob and the family moved in, and in the name of Jesus, don’t offer the guy a cigarette. Jacob rolls his eyes and tolerates it, because Paul is friendly and knows how to farm.

Weeks go by and Monica has yet to warm to the situation. She and Jacob quarrel frequently. One of their differences is, she’s a religious believer and he’s not, although their fights are over the pragmatic stuff. Aren’t they always? She brightens when they agree to fly her mother over from Korea to help watch Anne and David. Soonja (Yuh-jung Youn) is a pistol. She sleeps on the floor in David’s room, prompting the boy to complain, “Grandma smells like Korea.” She gives David cards and curses like crazy in Korean while they play — bastard this and damn it that. Does young David repeat it? Of course he repeats it. They speak Korean and English, although Grandma’s still learning English. She loves to watch pro wrestling on TV and drink Mountain Dew. She takes Anne and David into the woods to a creek, where she plants her minari seeds. Minari grows like crazy and is great in soups and stews and many other dishes, she says.

Jacob works diligently on the farm and Monica gets faster and more efficient at peering into the darkest depths of chicken anuses, but they’re still deep in debt. The well he dug goes dry and he connects to the expensive county water line so the crops won’t be lost. He knows he’s testing everyone’s patience with this endeavor. He makes a crucial acknowledgement to Monica — she needs to make friends, so he begrudgingly suggests they go to church. They’re met with kindness but get funny looks and grandma notices how fat the American people are and it’s all awkward. “Let’s just work on Sundays,” Monica says.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Premise-wise, Minari is kind of The Farewell in reverse. Both offer extraordinary, and often extraordinarily funny, stories of Asian immigrants finding a way to marry their native cultures with American sensibilities.

Performance Worth Watching: The cast is so comically and dramatically on point, it’s hard to choose a standout. But the story brightens significantly with Grandma’s arrival, so let’s give it to Youn, who brings true spirit and eccentricity to the film, and inspires the biggest laughs.

Memorable Dialogue: “Grandma smells like Korea.” “Let’s just work on Sundays.” All-time classics.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Minari is a wonder, a tonally distinctive film telling a story we haven’t quite heard before, and rooted in the type of detailed reminiscence that’s likely quite personal for Chung, but also inclusive for empathetic parties. It’s smartly written, with strong dialogue and the type of realistically multifaceted characters that set up Yuen and Han to succeed. Their performances convey the lived-in pragmatism of family life underscored with deeply loving tones. Jacob is torn between his dream and the hardship his family faces; the irony of his character is how he yearns for an unambiguously American, head-in-the-clouds idealism, yet has no time for “superstitious” concerns like prayer. Monica understandably wishes to avoid hardship, and believes they should find a way to be happy even if it means assessing chicken genitalia for the rest of their lives. Neither is wrong. It’s his big picture viewpoint vs. her concern for the everyday reality of their lives, and the question is whether they can keep the family together, whether the dirt plot can hold water in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

The church sequence is one of the funniest stretches of film I’ve seen in recent memory. It leaps out and tickles you unexpectedly. The preacher makes the family stand so they can be greeted with warm applause. They mingle at the post-sermon potluck and it’s awkward and comic and awkward and awkward. The scene’s rich with social and political subtext — imagine being the only Asian family in a Reagan-era rural-South community — but funnels it through Chung’s bemused point of view. It could be a terrific short film by itself, but functions as a piece of the film’s larger mosaic, which addresses alienation and acclimation with a remarkable balance of comedy and pathos. It’s never sentimental, cynical, wacky or melodramatic. It’s just right, and it feels like truth.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Minari is thoughtful, insightful and moving. It’s a must-see.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream Minari