Minari - 2020
Hypothetically speaking, you could turn a corner down a short foyer hallway and enter a crowded, bustling table. The din would hit you before you even entered the room. Still, at the threshold, you'd hear voices rising and falling, barely controlled and elemental. Each person striving to make his or her case, generally with grand gestures and overt statements. The catalogue of life’s major themes – love, loss, regret, hope, happiness – would be bandied about by nearly all. The cabal would even tackles specific questions like immigration and what it really means to chase the American Dream. Spokespeople could be heard until their words and gesticulations piled up into a blur of sound and fury.
When things finally died down, a modest man would clear his throat gently in the corner. He'd stand up, look the gathering directly in the eye, and calmly and evenly say the most profound words that anyone had heard all evening. That man…would be Lee Isaac Chung. His words - Minari.
See, we could do the film breakdown “thing” (and I will some momentarily), but at its core THAT is the raw power of this film. It is a portrait - intimate, heartfelt, and raw - of a single family. Yes, Minari is about family and cultural assimilation. It is concerned with the “immigrant experience” and the closely tied chase for the American Dream. It surely has big ideas and major themes. But at its heart, it is remarkably tender, naturalistic, and modest. It rarely shouts, but often whispers. Chung’s gaze remains right there amidst his characters, in their day-to-day toil to make a new way of life in a strange, foreign land.
This may be the best single ensemble of the year. Steven Yeun has rightly earned all of the accolades he has received to this point. Yeun has this remarkable charm and charisma that makes the audience innately want to like him. He is a winning star. Therefore, his greatest achievement here may be playing directly against this, portraying a passionate but flawed man who earns our criticisms alongside our understanding. Yeun’s Jacob ultimately represents hope and diligence, the dream of having your own plot of land to till and work successfully. Yet, his ambition blinds him to the very concrete, tangible needs of his family and dreaded debt which threatens to engulf them. Opposite Yeun is his wife Monica, played magnificently by Yeri Han, who sees the practical alongside the dreamer. Her wish is for security and provision, and the conflict between the couple rears its head throughout the proceedings.
Besides these two leads, the soul of the picture appears to be in the tenuous but ultimately rock-solid connection between the sweet, doe-eyed young boy (Alan Kim) and the sassy, fish out of water grandma (Yuh-Jung Youn). Any good family has moments of conflict and connection, and Minari hits this perfect blend of comedy and drama like few films can. Chung mines the opposites and distinctions between each of the family’s characters (his script, drawing heavily from his own personal life experiences, is exquisite) to bring forth laughter, empathy, and in the end, tears. This is the work of an incredible ensemble.
But Chung matches the writing and acting with an impressive cinematography and score. Minari is a film rich with setting, situated in a distinct time and place. Side players like the church gatherings of the locals and the misguided but authentically sweet religious fervor of an almost unrecognizable Will Patton only add to the portrait of this place. Even the nuts and bolts of farming on Arkansan land, sexing chicks (two words I never put together before this film’s viewing), or the family’s rectangle block home on cinderblocks add to the rich tapestry. Because the film captures these affecting visuals in a very gentle and observational way, Minari falls back on deft scoring to underscore the dramatic moments hidden therein.
This, in the end, is Chung’s uncommon knack, namely writing lived-in characters who he tenderly follows in the daily motion of their lives. Whether it’s the honest, heart-on-his-sleeve young boy, or the feisty grandmother, the mature and grounded older sister, or the fretful and pragmatic mother. Together, in sum, Chang weaves these intimate details and characters into a gift - a perfect summation of the immigrant experience. He grants us, in particular, the sacrifices made by one generation to make way for the possibilities of the next (the plant known as minari is all about this central idea).
The director, as I said at the jump, does so not with grand statements or artifice, but in allowing us to find resonance in the minutiae of real life. In so doing, Minari rarely knocks your socks off, opting rather to nestle itself softly into the core of your affections.
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