There’s something poetic about water celery. Grown abundantly in Asia, the herby vegetable is sometimes referred to as water dropwort, or—in Korea—minari.
Lee Isaac Chung’s marvelous new film, a Best Picture nominee at this year’s Academy Awards, is titled after that plant. In an interview at the Sundance Film Festival last year, he cited the resilient qualities of minari (the vegetable) as they parallel thematic undertones in Minari (his film).
“It’s a plant that will grow very strongly after it’s died and come back,” he said. “There’s an element of that in the film. It’s a poetic plant, in that way, for me.”
The seeds of that metaphor are soft and strong in Minari, which is enhanced by a number of expressively lyrical narrative choices. Motifs of renewal and endurance inhabit much of the story—even in visual throughlines as understated as vegetables sprouting up in a creek bed. The minari plant grows in otherwise uninhabitable spaces, springing back to life more vibrantly in its second, third, and fourth seasons. In this way, these unassuming seedlings not only supply the film its title, but fortify its light-handed messages about the immigrant experience and, more universally, second chances.
Minari is a semi-autobiographical account of an uprooted family—the Yis. Jacob (Steven Yeun), Monica (Han Ye-ri), Anne (Noel Kate Cho), and David (Alan Kim) are trying to create a future of their own. The Yis migrate from California to the rural South. In the spirit of entrepreneurial ambition, or perhaps the fabled American Dream, they attempt to start a successful farm on an isolated plot of land. To do it, they’ll have to make some sacrifices.
Home is an unattractive, leaky house trailer in the Arkansas boondocks. Their neighbors are well-meaning, if obtuse, Arkansans who’ve likely interacted with few outsiders. (One benign-but-cringeworthy sequence depicts a young girl spewing off gibberish to Anne until she stumbles upon something Korean; meanwhile, David’s friend asks in earnest why his face is “so flat.”) Until they get the farm up and running, Jacob and Monica’s interim work is chicken sexing (the process of determining a chicken’s sex) at a local factory. Grandma Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) travels from South Korea to keep an eye on the kids—cementing the permanence of their pilgrimage. For better or for worse, they’re staying put.
“Let’s give ‘em a big Arkansas welcome!” the hatchery supervisor hoots on their first day.
Not everyone is content with the new arrangement. Monica wants to go home. She’s less than impressed by their new digs and questions her husband’s chronic optimism. Through her eyes, we see Jacob’s mulish devotion to the farm threatening to eclipse his duty to his family. Through his eyes, we see how this is their ticket to a brighter future. An ongoing tension lingers between them, burrowing deeper than their tactical disagreements. It seeps into the burgeoning cracks in their relationship, settling in like smoke from a distant fire.
“If this is the start you wanted, maybe there’s no chance for us,” Monica muses cryptically during a harsh thunderstorm, referring either to the farm or to their marriage.
Admirably, Chung paints these characters and their discord without taking sides or passing judgement. Both Monica and Jacob, if rendered sloppily, might have succumbed to one-noteness. Instead, we understand their anxieties and the pressures they’ve put on each other and themselves. In Arkansas, they’ve got one chance at a new start, and it’s too late to turn back.
Of course, Chung’s deft storytelling capabilities extend beyond his knack for nuanced characterization and clear-eyed portraiture of the immigrant experience. Despite its pensive tone and emotional intensity, Minari is also a sweet, surprisingly funny film about the idiosyncrasies of family.
David, the youngest member of the Yi family whose heart is imperiled by a health condition, can never seem to get along with his grandmother, which makes for some decidedly charming sequences. Soon-ja is mischievous, whimsical, and a little foul-mouthed. Her character is often the shining heartbeat of the film, upending the Yi family with her playful troublemaking and alarmingly poignant bouts of wisdom. Departing her life in Korea to care for her daughter’s family, she reminds them of the importance of a light heart, the surprising profundity of an open mind: “You’re upset because your house has wheels? It’s fun!” She doesn’t even mind David’s guileless resentment; in fact, it amuses her. Mountain Dew in hand, she teaches him the importance of courage, inviting him to take risks that no one else (understandably) would advise.
As they warm up to each other, and as Jacob cultivates the promise of his patch of earth, we anxiously wait for the other shoe to drop. This is an Oscar-nominated drama, after all.
In some ways, it does. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about Minari, however, is that its tragic elements are measured, never manipulated. Even in its most harrowing moments, the film doesn’t blow us away with tearful sentimentality, although you’ll probably end up crying anyhow. Rather, Chung’s approach remains considerate and gentle, allowing us to absorb what we’ve seen without asking anything more of us, without soliciting our pity. Lachlan Milne’s delicate cinematography and Emile Mosseri’s seamless score mirror that restraint.
The final act of Minari dutifully realizes the arcs of its central characters. In a hot emotional crescendo, the Yi family learns what it truly means to be there for one other. Their concealed resentment, fear, and selfishness burn up all at once—along with the unspoken, unbridgeable gaps between them.
“Things that hide are more dangerous and scary,” Soon-ja observes early on in the film. She’s right.
The Yis must let go of what they’ve worked for, every selfish thing they clung to, to find a path forward. That message is compassionately conceived and thoughtfully executed by Chung and his actors. Themes of duality, forgiveness, sacrifice, and recovery dwell in the narrative soil of Minari and remain with us long after the last seed is harvested and the credits roll.
Chung has crafted a sweet story about homecoming in the most implausible of places, about returning to the self, and about the surviving loyalty of family. Impressively, he achieves it without fanfare.
Due to its subtleties, this film’s power might require a second, or even third, viewing to fully blossom. But like its botanical namesake, Minari only gets better with time.