Review: 'Minari' is a warm and wise look at a Korean family trying to make it in America

Culture clashes and family struggles are at the heart of “Minari,” an emotionally resonant drama from director-writer Lee Isaac Chung.

Jacob Yi (Stephen Yeun, formerly of “The Walking Dead”) and his wife, Monica (Yeri Han), are a Korean-born couple who have left California for Arkansas in the mid-1980s, to pursue Jacob’s dream of running his own farm. With them are their American-born kids, Ann (Noel Kate Cho), who’s about 11, and 7-year-old David (Alan Kim), who gets extra pampering and worry from Monica because he has a heart murmur.

Jacob is enthusiastic about the fresh start, from buying a new tractor to hiring Paul (Will Patton), a local laborer who practices his own eccentric brand of Christianity. Monica is less thrilled about the single-wide pre-fab home they are living in, though her spirits pick up when her mother (Youn Yuh Jung) comes to live with them, bringing Korean chili powder and a penchant for playing cards. David is reluctant to befriend Grandma, whom he’s never met, but they bond over planting seeds of minari, a Korean plant and on-the-nose metaphor that fares well wherever it’s sown.

Chung’s script runs the Yi family through hardships, both financial and marital, while also displaying David’s child’s-eye view of life in the South. Chung’s direction captures the details of life in Reagan’s America, of Sunday church services and summer heat waves. And the cast, particularly Yeun and Han as the couple struggling to stay together through hardship, is exceptional. 

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‘Minari’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, February 12, in theaters where open, and in virtual cinemas. Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and a rude gesture. Running time: 115 minutes; in English and in Korean, with subtitles.

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This review originally ran on this site on January 28, 2020, when the movie screened at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.