Minari: A Charming A24 Drama

So, in the months and days leading up to the release of Twisters, Lee Isaac Chung was a name that was on my radar, and because of my ongoing A24 schpeel, when I heard that he had directed 2020's "Minari," I decided to give it a watch. And let me say, in a lot of ways, I think it's been a long time since I've seen a film this refreshingly, for lack of a better word, pure. In an age where the go-to tropes of storytelling are coming-of-age stories, my-parents-suck stories, and self-discovery stories (see a potentially problematic pattern here?), Minari is a good old-fashioned story about a family moving to a new land and trying to make a living in the new culture there. It's a simple story about the importance of family, and while that idea is nothing new or profound, it was refreshing to see a movie that trusts in its own merits enough to tell the story it really wanted to tell rather than the story it thinks audiences would necessarily want to hear. Minari is a confident film, and while it might not be a perfect film or a high-stakes film, tending to fall prey to some of the less desirable habits of A24 and other independent character-driven dramas, I thoroughly fell in love with Jacob Yi and his little family of four. I was really, really happy I had given this movie a watch by the time the credits rolled because this movie ultimately made me really infectiously happy, which is something I think I had lost along the way somewhere in my study of film.

OK, for the brief and spoiler-free synopsis that I always try to give out at the start of my articles, Minari is a largely-Korean-language and semi-autobiographical film set in the 1980s that follows the Yis, a Korean-American family who has recently moved from California deep into rural Arkansas, as they try to figure out how life in a new part of the country is supposed to work.

For a while, box office numbers, cultural preferences, streaming service recommendations, and occasional checks of Redbox movie selections gave me the impression that character-centric stories were dying, and that made me kind of sad because I love character dramas. I like it when a movie makes me want to care about characters, and so it makes me glad to see that movies like Minari are still being made by writers and directors who obviously care very much about the characters in their stories. The Yi family is nothing short of charming and an absolute joy to watch on-screen, and I was happy to sit through this slower and more matter-of-fact film due to the excellent acting jobs and the strong but down-to-earth sense of characterization. Like I said earlier, Minari is a really old-fashioned story, and for once, it was nice to see a social media-era and MCU-era film not try to stifle me by grabbing for my attention, worried that I might get bored and leave when things get slow (it's a rule that I must poke at the Marvel Cinematic Universe every so often for some reason. I don't write the rules). It was nice to see a movie with guts for once, not really worried about what its audiences thought about it, and totally committed to the story it wanted to tell rather than the story the audiences necessarily wanted to see. Minari sticks to its guns because it knows it's a good movie, and focuses entirely on the characters of this film and what they want. One effective narrative device was Monica, the mom, and Jacob, the dad, wanting two different things. Monica isn't too keen on Nowheresville, Arkansas, and her constant desire to move back to the city injects the film with much-needed conflict, even if the stakes of said conflict weren't as high as they probably should have been. But more on that later. Bolstering Minari is some absolutely fantastic acting that has become more-or-less expected from A24 projects. At points in the movie, I forgot I was watching actors, and as someone who watches a lot of movies, that is some of the highest praise I can give to one.

As far as the technical aspects of Minari go, the film's command of natural light is impressive. Director Lee Isaac Chung has stated that using predominantly natural light to shoot the film was an intentionally down-to-earth decision on his part to try and keep the focus on the Yi family. And that's cool and all, but I just want to say, on a more elementary level, Minari is a good-looking movie, and cinematographer Lachlan Milne must have had unparalleled patience with the cast and crew of this film to pull off the image he did while still holding steadfast to the relatively minimalistic approach that Chung was looking for. The natural scenery that we see in Minari is a welcome and refreshing departure from studio lots and soundstages, and bled authenticity, keeping me firmly grounded within the story and preventing my mind from noticing things like dark spots where a set might be unfinished or a light that was definitely a part of the studio rather than part of the set. In short, the movie feels real because most if not all of what you're seeing is real, and in addition, I have to applaud the team of Minari for their willingness to stick it out through filming in nature. I don't even want to think about how many continuity issues and weather cancellations they had to work through while filming in the American Midwest (but no shade on the American Midwest. People living there are honest and hard-working, and city folk need to have more respect for them).

To dig the roots of naturalism down further and to burrow over from technical aspects to the story side of things, I mostly like Minari's matter-of-fact narrative nature because it allows for some smart recurring elements. For example, to keep himself from wetting the bed while dreaming, David, the son of the Yi family, is told to pinch himself to see if he's sleeping, and every so often in the film, he'll pinch himself on the cheek. It's the little things that matter in a film, and I appreciate the obvious care and attention to detail in Minari, even if most audiences are going to be zooming out to five thousand feet to watch this movie. Minari is a small-scale story, and so it's nice to see that it cares about even the smallest of details about the lives of our characters. Now, this film isn't perfect, and it adheres to some problematic story tropes that I've seen play out in a lot of A24 dramas. The most notable complaint I have with this movie is that it really could have used more of an antagonistic force to give its characters something to work against, and because it lacks that relative sense of stakes and opposition, Minari can sometimes feel somewhat procedural. Another thing that rubbed me strangely that some audiences might take offense to is some of the film's somewhat stereotypical portrayals of people living in the Midwest (for example, of the Yi's neighbor Paul), but for some reason, I kept getting the sense that despite appearances, Paul was the smartest man in the room, and I was never able to shake it, and so I'm going to give Chung and crew the benefit of the doubt because I think this is intentional. Paul might initially seem to be a trope and nothing more, but as time goes on and a lot of the admittedly strange things he says or teaches turn out to either make sense or be correct, I sensed a duality to his character that I wasn't expecting. So, Minari isn't a perfect film, but its A-grade acting, down-to-earth story, and excellent technical aspects make it work like a charm with an extra dose of charm on the side. As far as parental concerns go, there are a few instances of bad language, barely enough to earn the movie a PG-13 rating, but this is by and large a really, really pure, quiet, earnest, and effective movie that I don't really have any qualms about recommending to younger audiences and cinephiles alike, and that's refreshing in a world where too often, we have to choose between movies with questionable content or movies that have nothing of substance to say.

Minari - 8/10

Exodus: 20:12