Spoilers ahead..
Jacob (Steven Yeun) relocates his Korean-American family from California to 1980's rural Arkansas with his wife Monica (Yeri Han) and children - David (Alan S Kim) and Anne (Noel Cho). He intends to build a 50 acre farm while doing part-time work with wife at a chicken sexer place. The rest story is about how everyone tries to adjust with the financial disaster looming if the farm doesn't go as per the plan.
I always find simple family based stories (not dysfunctional) beautiful to watch and Minari is one of them. You see Jacob full of enthusiasm and desires wanting to prove he is capable of much more while his wife is skeptical and not liking the new house or the environment having no neighbour nearby. There's the regular fights on it but they keep supporting each other, Jacob does it by making Monica's mom, Soonja (an excellent Youn Yuh-jung) come live with them or by taking them to church to mingle with other people.
Love how Jacob relates to his son David regarding the burning of male chicken as they being useless and we men rather have to be useful in this world. Also, the enjoyable scene when you think Jacob is gonna beat David with a stick but it turns into comedy when David twice intentionally brings broken sticks.
The main highlight of the movie however are the interactions of Soonja and David, they are super cute and very fun to watch, be it him saying 'she can't be grandma, she does nothing what Grandmas does' or her telling him to ignore those fake heaven stories Monica narrates so he would start habit of praying out of fear. Soonja also gives out what 'Minari' title means for viewers like me, about it being a plant that can be grown at any place like weeds and rich or poor anyone can enjoy it which basically could be a reference to Immigrants and they trying to find a new place to live at.
My Rating : 7/10
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