Minari

Minari Movie Review

by sabrina lee illustrated by aryanna brown

Minari is a celery-like and resilient plant that can flourish in even the poorest soil conditions. Like the plant, the movie Minari follows the Yi family as they try to plant their roots in the middle of Arkansas to start a new life. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung, the movie is a semi-autobiographical film told from the heart. It is about the struggles and small triumphs of immigrating to a new country. The story begins with Jacob (Steven Yeun) who is driving excitedly through a muddy trail as his wife, Monica (Yeri Han) sits dismayed by the sight of a small mobile home in contrast to their nicer life in California. David, a 7-year-old child (Alan Kim) who suffers from a heart condition, is running in the fields with his older sister Anne (Noel Kate Cho) as they begin to explore what will hopefully be a farm filled with Korean crops and vegetables.

Farming does not come easy for Jacob as he and his wife struggle financially and try to balance their jobs as farmers and as chicken sexers. Monica not only grows lonely despite attending a nearby church with very little Korean people to converse with, but she gets worried that her husband cares more about the farm than the family. It isn’t until Monica’s mother comes into the picture, played by Yuh-Jung Youn, does the sly, foul-mouthed Grandma spice up the atmosphere of the Yi’s residents.

Although I grew up in a Chinese household, there were many scenes in Minari that resonated deeply with my own life. I remember being embarrassed of sharing a room with my Grandma and wrinkling my nose whenever she made me drink her concoctions of dark herbal tea. Seeing Monica cry over the bags of anchovies and red pepper flakes reminded me of the times my Dad would get excited over seeing things that reminded him of home in China. Whenever there were parts where Monica and Jacob were fighting over their finances, I couldn’t help but see the mirror like images of my Mom crying alone in the bathroom wondering when she would ever achieve her American Dream.

Although Minari won best foreign language film at the 2021 Golden Globes, the language that Minari speaks should not be foreign to people at all. During Lee Isaac Chung’s acceptance speech, he explains that “Minari is about a family trying to learn to speak a language of its own. It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language. It’s a language of the heart, and I’m trying to learn it myself and to pass it on and I hope we’ll all learn how to speak this language of love to each other, especially this year.”

Hollywood needs to recognize that the stories that Asian Americans tell are just as important as every other American story. By putting Minari in the forgein movie category, it continues to perpetuate the “forever foreigner” stereotype. It echoes what every Asian American has heard or felt at some point in their lives. No matter how hard we try to fit in, there will always be people trying to point out our otherness and shout that we don’t belong. Despite the movie expressing a genuine, heartfelt Asian American story, there is a need for subtitles. The subtitles are still an obstacle that many people refuse to overcome. You don’t have to be Asian to relate to the messages that Minari evokes. In the end, this is a story of family, love and heartbreak. It reinforces the idea that a house does not make a home, but the people in it that make it one. The movie truly symbolizes the Minari plant itself. Despite the improbable conditions the Yi family are given, they continue to be resilient and hope to survive the future harvest seasons to come.

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