The film’s title comes from a specific act Soonja performs. She plants
In the landscape of American cinema, the "immigrant story" is a genre often fraught with tropes—the harrowing journey, the immediate culture clash, and the eventual triumphant assimilation. However, in 2020, director Lee Isaac Chung delivered a quiet masterpiece that subverted these expectations. Minari is not a film about arriving in America; it is a film about trying to belong to it, one seed at a time. MINARI -2020-
Soonja is a subversion of the "sweet, baking cookies" grandmother archetype. She is foul-mouthed, gambles, drinks Mountain Dew, and initially refuses to conform to the children's expectations of what a grandmother should be. Yet, she becomes the heart of the film. The film’s title comes from a specific act Soonja performs
Unlike the typical immigrant narrative where the city represents opportunity, Minari chooses the rural South. This setting is crucial. The Yis are not just foreigners in a new country; they are outsiders in a specific, insular community. The initial scenes are defined by a sense of displacement. The house they live in is a wheeled trailer on cinder blocks; the land is overgrown and wild. Minari is not a film about arriving in
Jacob’s obsession with the land is the film’s central conflict. He wants to be the master of his own destiny, to create something from nothing. "In America, nobody cares about me," he tells Monica. "So I have to make something of myself." This line encapsulates the specific immigrant anxiety of Minari —the feeling that to be seen in America, one must conquer it. The narrative dynamic shifts dramatically with the arrival of Grandma Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung). Monica brings her mother from Korea to help care for the children, particularly David (Alan Kim), who has a heart murmur and is the film's primary lens.
Youn Yuh-jung’s performance, which rightfully won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, is a masterclass in texture. She is funny, abrasive, and deeply loving. She represents the "Old Country," but not as a burden—rather, as a source of vitality.
Released to critical acclaim and earning six Academy Award nominations (winning one), Minari —titled after the Korean water dropwort that grows abundantly along streams—is a semi-autobiographical portrait of the Korean-American experience in the 1980s. It is a film defined by its gentle rhythm, its复杂的 (complex) family dynamics, and a profound understanding that the American Dream is rarely a straight line to success; it is a winding, muddy path often paved with failure and resilience. The film introduces us to the Yi family, who have just arrived in rural Arkansas from California. The father, Jacob (Steven Yeun), is a man possessed by a vision. He has moved his family to a plot of land in the Ozarks to start a farm, specifically growing Korean vegetables for the burgeoning Korean market in the region. His wife, Monica (Yeri Han), is skeptical and fearful, worrying about the isolation and the lack of stability for their two young children, Anne and David.