A Korean immigrant family moves from California to a meadow in Arkansas in the 80s, and has to live in a giant trailer-house for start. The kids, Anne and David, try to adapt and speak English, while their parents Jacob and Monica still speak Korean and work in a factory separating male and female chicks. Jacob and a religious American, Paul, plant Korean vegetables, since Paul read that 30,000 Koreans move to America each year, and that they will want to buy Korean food. Grandma moves in with them, but suffers a stroke. When grandma wants to burn the garbage in a can one night, the fire spreads and encompasses the barn, destroying all the vegetables. But along a creek, minari vegetables has grown, and thus Jacob and David pick it.
Another investment into quality independent cinema by Plan B productions was appropriately rewarded with critical acclaim and accolades, and is an overall honest, emotional, genuine and unassuming little film about Korean migrants to the United States. “Minari” is good, but somehow too standard and conventional achievement, never quite succeeding in transforming into something more. Everything is done right and good, but no sequence is extraordinary or unique, leaving a rather forgettable impression. The director Lee Isaac Chung gets the maximum out of his cast, who all deliver fine performances, most notably Youn Yuh-jung as the unusal grandma. In one funny sequence, David argues with her: “A real grandma bakes cakes, doesn’t swear, and doesn’t wear men’s underwear”, and later on even spills tea and serves her with his urine in a teacup, but as dad wants to punish him, grandma defends the kid, and even says that drinking urine was “fun”. "Minari" is a cozy and pleasant 'memory book' of a Korean family in the US, a one whose good intentions and sympathies are more significant than its cinematic capabilities.
Grade:++
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