Minari is a drama about a Korean family that chases after the American dream by moving to the Ozarks on the prospect of making money by filling a niche. When Jacob gets the idea that he can move away from the fields of California to grow Korean vegetables to an increasing number of Korean immigrants living in America's Heartland, he inadvertently creates a rift in his family, who are out of their element in this new place. His struggle to be the provider lands them all with a host of new challenges.
Young parents Jacob (Steven Yeun) and Monica (Yeri Han) are struggling to make ends meet at their dead-end farming jobs in California. Sick of sorting chickens and eking out a living that's not sustainable, Jacob wants to move to Arkansas to start a farm, and a big one at that. He wants to build a life for them so that they can thrive, rather than live in eternal poverty.
Monica's not sold on the idea, as she's more accustomed to living in the city, but willing to entertain it for Jacob's sake. Her end goals for her American-born children are at least in line with his financial goals. She, too, wants the best for her family and while she struggles to see how they can find it in this new place, she makes a concerted effort to rise to the challenge.
But when Monica's mother - grandmother Soonja (Yuh-jung Youn) - arrives from Korea, an interesting new dynamic is added in that she's supposed to be there to help with childcare, but ends up adding new problems of her own. Committed to her own ideas and ideals, she doesn't pull any punches with her words, or her actions, often taking her childcare to the next level as she provides unwanted care for her own adult child.
As committed as the family is to trying their best to fit in, with Jacob adopting the mannerisms of the farmers around him and all of them trying to pick the right church to make friends at, they're still faced with a looming dark truth. How much of their fitting in is assimilation and how much of their roots can they hold onto in this new world?
Written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung (Abigail Harm, Lucky Life) this is a semi-autobiographical tale of his own roots in Arkansas. There's a truth he manages to capture in each of the characters, which springs from their own desires and appears genuine.
The metaphor of the hearty minari crop which Soonja plants in a nearby stream, which only needs water to adapt to its new environment, describes perfectly the Korean family trying to make it in the heartland of America. Arkansas is a far cry from their California and provides the beautiful backdrop that's strikingly different than the desert they're accustomed to living in, while at the same time offering new challenges for them all to overcome both physically and emotionally.
Overall, Minari boasts some fine performances through well-written characters, as well as a unique setup for a fairly commonplace though timeless fish out of water tale, retold in a slightly different way than usual. There's something universal that connects this family to all humanity, turning their struggles and lighthearted moments into a fine piece of cinema.