| Name of the Movie | Minari |
| Starring | Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, Alan Kim, |
| Director & Year of Release | Lee Isaac Chung, 2021 |
| Studio | Plan B Entertainment |
CHECKLIST Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Vepotolu Dozo, Asst. Teacher, Department of English, Tetso College
MINARI is one of the most beautiful film I have watched. A family movie which is simple yet subtle that runs deep with its metaphorical meanings attached. Minari is undeniably wonderful, captivating the viewers at an instant to fall intrinsically in love with it.
The film is an Oscar nominated movie written and Directed by Lee Isaac Chang. A semi-autobiographical movie of the director himself that sets in the 1980’s. This movie tells the story about the past through the powerful cinematographic medium. It is about a Korean-American family who move from California to Arkansas Farm in search of their own American Dreams. Minari explores the themes of Immigrant Experience, Marriage, Family, Faith, American Dreams and Generation gap. What makes this film so special is that, it exhibits a timeless genre and people from all walks of life can connect with it.
The movie focuses on Mr. Yi’s Family, Korean-American immigrants that purchased a house on wheels stationed on Acres of open land, with the hope to turn his dream of owning a big farm into a reality.
Jacob Yi (Steven yeun) and his wife Monica (Han ye-ri) are Korean born who made a decision to make a new life in America after years of sexing chickens. Jacob convinced his wife and two children, David (Noel Kate Cho) and Anne (Alan Kim) to move to Arkansas. He has a deep desire to live out his “American Dreams” and to prove to his family that he is capable of achieving success. Amidst the obstacles, challenges and setbacks he had to go through along the way in producing crops successfully and finding vendors to sell them. At the same time, he struggled keeping his family together.
Jacob’s determination on his American Dreams of having his own farm led to the point that he lost sight of his family. The couple constantly argue that it has put a strain on their relationship and marriage. Their ideas also clash because Monica wants the family to stay together and move to a place closer to the hospital as David their young son had a heart problem. Whereas Jacob wants to work hard on the farm and prove to his family, he even began to stress that farming is his biggest priority.
What makes this movie so interesting and realistic is the use of native dialogue, Jacob and his wife often speaks Korean while intermixing English as their kids are American born. The characters in the movie tries to portray Korean culture in America through Jacob’s desire to grow Korean vegetables and sell them to those increasing number of Korean immigrants settling in America.
Minari shows an immigrant family with contradictions: with Jacob wanting to ignore the traditional American farming technique of dowsing for water and the Grandmother (Youn yuh-jung) dismissing the children as being stupid Americans. In return the children take their wild grandmother to task, saying “she smells like Korea” and criticized her for not being “a real grandma” who bakes cookies. She watches wrestling in her underwear, Swears and sneaks mountain dew from the children. In a sense Minari begins again at the ending, with the fire which burns the farm to the ground bringing the family closer after they have been pulled apart.
Overall this is a heart-warming film, filled with emotions and bonding between family, which we can relate to it on a personal level. The struggles and hardship that any family go through, an uphill battle to find a place in the society, the love and care they show towards one another in the midst of hardship and chaos is well projected in the movie which ultimately led them to a better direction.
CHECKLIST is a review column initiated by Tetso College that aims at giving students, reviewers and writers a platform to review and reflect upon books, movies, television shows, documentaries, magazines, restaurants and catering services, games, software, and product reviews. The reviews should be a reflective writing encompassing the writer’s opinions about the subject matter while avoiding unprecedented subjective bias. This is an unsponsored review column. The views expressed here do not reflect the opinion of the Institution. Type your review in a Google Docs or MS Word document and email it to dottalks@tetsocollege.org.