Minari

Minari is a sweet little atmospheric picture about a Korean family settling into a remote dwelling in the United States seeking a new start. The husband Jacob (Steven Yeun) wishes to open a farm hence such a decision, but the opposer to this is his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) worrying how the lack of nearby facilities would affect treatment for their son David's (Alan Kim) heart condition.

Jacob's dream to start a farm of his own is palpable. From locating a water source to losing a market contract, from depleting water reservoir reserved for his family's use to burning up his entire yield, you feel his pain through and through. By far the greatest aspect of the film is the relationship between David and his grandmother Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung). The language barrier and the general drama between the two is heartbreaking yet hilarious! David doesn't like his grandma from the beginning, letting out all sorts of innocent derogatory comments such as "Grandma smell like Korea". This is understandable since the Soon-ja comes across dishonest and irresponsible at first. David avoids her like the plague, even feeds her his own urine disguised as soft drink, which is followed by a funny punishment scene!

The performances are natural as is the family unit. You would easily believe this is a real nuclear family and nobody's acting here. Every actor did an outstanding job, including Jacob's superstitious co-farmer. Speaking of anything natural, even the exposition is told to us that way. Argument about the current predicament in the family during a tornado risk night tells us where the anger, dissatisfaction and unhappiness of this marriage is coming from.

Background music from the get-go is great and the sound design is profound. Retro Panasonic cassette player and old Mountain Dew bottle labels are staples of detailed production design. And the mood of the film from start to finish is uniformly calm, serene and peaceful, alike taking a slow walk in a drizzling evening park facing sundown.