FAMILY FORTUNES (MINARI)

Hot on the heels of last year's breakthrough Best Picture Oscar victory by Bong Joon-Ho's 'Parasite', comes another Academy Award nominated film about a Korean family.

Lee Isaac Chung's drama 'Minari' is a partially autobiographical tale about an immigrant family whose father uproots them from California to Arkansas.

A winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, it has become a formidable contender during awards season, picking up six Oscar nominations including for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

Set in Ronald Reagan's America in the 1980s, Steven Yeun plays Jacob Yi who leads his young family to the heart of Arkansas and a plot of land where he plans to build a farm.

Jacob likes to dream big, insisting the land they are acquiring is the best soil you could get in the US for the growing of plants and vegetables.

However his wife, Han Ye-ri's Monica is more sceptical and she is taken aback when she discovers Jacob wants the family to move into a trailer.

Their daughter, Noel Kate Cho's Anne and young son, Alan Kim's David make the most of their new environment as all kids do.

Initially, the Yis find work in a local chicken processing factory alongside other Korean workers, sorting out the male chicks from the female chicks - the latter being more prized for their eggs and meat.

Jacob is particularly adept at separating the chicks quickly, having had experience in California but he resents the work.

Monica, who is more unsettled in their new home, is much slower at separating them.

As Jacob devotes more time, energy and money to the cultivation of the land, Monica becomes increasingly concerned about the savings he is burning through.

Her unease is exacerbated by a tornado warning which Jacob admits could rip their home apart and the couple get into a blazing row, while Anne and David retreat to a bedroom and make paper aeroplanes with messages scribbled on them exhorting their parents to stop fighting.

Monica is concerned that their home is also too far away from the nearest hospital as David was born with a hole in his heart and could suffer heart trouble at any time.

In a bid to help his wife settle, Jacob agrees her mother Youn Yuh-Jung's Soon-ja can join them in Arkansas instead of living alone in South Korea.

Soon-ja arrives with chilli powder, chestnuts, playing cards and Minari seeds which she plants near a creek.

However David initially doesn't take kindly to her arrival or having to share a bedroom with her.

He complains she smells and isn't a typical grandma because she doesn't bake cookies.

Soon-ja reacts to her grandson's animosity towards her with a droll sense of humour but she works hard to establish a rapport with him.

The family attend a local church and are made to feel welcome by the predominantly white congregation, with David and Anne quickly making friends.

Jacob also enlists the help on the farm of Will Patton's eccentric Korean War veteran Paul, a devout Christian who has a tendency to speak in tongues and spends his Sundays walking the local roads carrying a life-size cross.

However as David gradually bonds with his grandmother, the family is tested by setbacks on the farm and in their personal lives that threaten to tear their family apart.

Working from his own script, Chung crafts a beautifully constructed and superbly controlled tragicomic tale of ambition, delusion and family tension that doesn't allow the histrionics to dominate.

With the assistance of Lachlan Milne's golden, breezy cinematography, Chung conjures up images of the Arkansas countryside that will remind viewers of the work of Terrence Malick and the French director Claude Berri.

Indeed Jacob's desperate struggle to grow crops on the land is reminiscent of Gerard Depardieu's woes in Berri's 'Jean de Florette,' minus the mean spiritedness of that film's rival farmers.

By way of contrast, Paul and the local community are quite welcoming and they wish Jacob well in his endeavours.

With a terrific musical score by Emile Mosseri, Chung also draws out fantastic performances from his cast.

Steven Yuen, who has received an Oscar nomination for his performance, is terrific as a father desperate to prove his worth to his wife and kids, taking huge risks as he pursues his dream of being an agri-entrepreneur.

Han Ye-ri also impresses as Monica, his deeply sceptical, unsettled wife who frets over David's wellbeing and worries about their financial stability.

Alan Kim is cute as David in both senses of the word and really handles the comic elements of the film well, while Noel Kate Cho convinces as his older sister even if the part she is given has less nuggets.

Patton is also excellent as the quirky Christian Paul.

However it is Youn Yuh-Jung who steals the show as Soon-ja, initially revelling in her character's sense of mischief but packing a hefty dramatic punch in the film's final act.

A nominee for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, her performance is more than worthy of the Screen Actors Guild and BAFTAs she has already won and would be popular winner of she triumphs at the Academy Awards.

It is to Chung's credit that he allows his performers the time and space to breathe life into the characters he has created.

He unobtrusively directs events in the film, letting them fall into place and as a result, he draws the audience into the lives of the Yi family so when the testing moments come we are fully invested. 

'Minari' is a subtle, gorgeous and absorbing family drama that deserves every plaudit it has received.

Hopefully when cinemas reopen in May on this side of the Atlantic, audiences will revisit and get to really savour its images on the big screen.

('Minari' received its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2020 and was made available on Video on Demand services in the UK and Ireland on April 2, 2021)

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