Families are unexpected things connected by invisible bonds and separated from one another by immeasurable breaks. The worst of them can’t find each other’s way even though their whole lives are under one roof. The best of them can drift away, separated for years, only to fit in quickly when they meet. Relationships can occur across years, generations, continents, and cultures.
Minari is the story of a Korean descent family who came to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s:
To pursue the American dream. Husband and wife (Jacob as Jon, Monica von Khan) find that they cannot agree on this dream’s contours, how to get there, what to sacrifice, and what to wear. Their children (daughter Anne, played by Cho, and son David by Kim), who speak better English and are still very warm in Korean skin, are torn between them.
Reminders of what matters come from across the ocean through Monica Sonia (Yun) ‘s mother. As a war widow, the only mother of an only child, she has long passed the age of “adjustment”. Soonja can’t cook, although she brings what her American daughter misses the most (red peppers and anchovies). She vows, loves to play cards and watch injured boxing matches, and advises: “Injuries are a part of Growing Up”. David says it all means she is “not a real grandmother” like her friends.
There is a relationship between Grandma and seven-year-old David, who is Minari’s heart.
In a way that only grandparents and grandchildren can. They see each other things that their parents haven’t seen for a long time. Unfortunately, Anne is only one setting in writer and director Chung’s autobiographical story. Even though David and his grandmother have enough love to accommodate everyone around them.
The film is set in remote, deserted Arkansas, where Jacob buys a ranch. Inhabited by locals from what happened to the old (unwritten) owner. Jacob rarely lives in California as a sex-segregating worker in a small house. He sees Arkansas farming as an opportunity to regain the life he left behind – closer to the ground. Korean vegetables growing in the open air. This also makes economic sense, given the increasing number of Korean immigrants.
Monica is shocked by what this means for her children. Especially David, who has heart disease.
Their house is just an extended trailer, no community, and Jacob is reluctant to agree to church. Even though they find welcome neighbors there.
If Minari was to blame, she was too outstanding, in her demeanor, in her character. Which included the friendly environmental workers Jacob hired. In vague hints of oriental exotics compared to others. In the ease of working of a family that He overcame. What God and other creatures threw into his path.
His prospects for Asian families gaining a foothold in rural America. Rather than usual urban conditions, his keen scrutiny of western roads and children (“who cares what little ones wear”) unique. Therefore universal rural issues and insights. The way the family works – routinely played by the stars – makes the Minari experience hard to forget.