Lee Isaac Chung drew from his own childhood to create Minari, the story of the Yi family who move from California to a small plot of land in rural Arkansas in the 1980s. Jacob (Steven Yeun), the father, dreams of building a farm that will grow Korean vegetables for the growing immigrant market. His wife Monica (Yeri Han) is skeptical and afraid. Their children, David and Anne, are trying to adapt to a world that looks nothing like their old one. When Monica’s mother Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives from Korea, the family dynamic shifts in unexpected ways.
The film won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Youn’s performance and earned six nominations including Best Picture. Community response has been warmly positive, with viewers consistently praising its authenticity, its restraint, and its ability to tell a specifically Korean American story that resonates across cultural boundaries.
Soon-ja and the Garden She Plants
Youn Yuh-jung’s Soon-ja is unlike any movie grandmother you’ve seen. She cusses, watches wrestling, plays cards with her grandson, and has zero interest in fitting anyone’s expectations of what a grandmother should be. Youn plays her with a specificity that makes every moment feel discovered rather than performed. Her relationship with young David (Alan Kim) is the film’s emotional engine, and the way affection grows between them despite David’s initial rejection is handled with a patience and humor that never forces the emotion.
Steven Yeun brings a quiet intensity to Jacob that captures the particular burden of an immigrant father who has staked everything on a dream his family doesn’t share. Yeun finds the stubbornness, the wounded pride, and the genuine love that coexist in a man who sees his farm as proof that the sacrifice of immigration was worth it. His performance avoids the trap of making Jacob either heroic or foolish, instead presenting him as a man doing the best he can with a vision that may or may not be achievable.
Yeri Han’s Monica is the film’s moral counterweight, a woman whose practicality and fear are just as valid as her husband’s ambition. Han plays the marital tension with such naturalism that their arguments feel like arguments you’ve overheard through thin apartment walls, full of real grievances and real love in uncomfortable proximity.
Chung’s direction is remarkably assured for a film dealing with this much personal material. He keeps the camera at a respectful distance, observing the family’s struggles without aestheticizing their poverty or overdramatizing their conflicts. The Arkansas landscape is shot with an honest eye that sees both its beauty and its difficulty, and the farm itself becomes a character whose progress tracks the family’s emotional state.
The Quietness That May Lose You
Minari’s restraint is its greatest strength and its most significant challenge for some viewers. The film moves slowly, trusts silences, and resolves conflicts through accumulation rather than confrontation. For viewers expecting the dramatic peaks of a conventional family drama, the film’s emotional register can feel muted, even when significant events occur.
The film’s structure is episodic rather than tightly plotted, following the rhythms of farm life and family routine rather than building toward clear dramatic turning points. Some viewers find this organic and true to life. Others find it diffuse, particularly in the second act when the various threads of the story develop at their own pace without obvious convergence.
Jacob’s character, while sympathetically performed, occasionally frustrates viewers who see his stubbornness as the source of the family’s problems. Chung doesn’t pass judgment on Jacob, which is artistically honest but can leave audiences wanting the film to acknowledge more directly the cost of his choices on his wife and children.
The cultural specificity that gives the film its authenticity can also create distance for viewers unfamiliar with Korean American immigrant experience. Chung doesn’t explain or translate cultural moments, which is the right artistic choice but means some nuances will be invisible to parts of the audience.
The Plant That Grows Anywhere
The minari plant, a Korean herb that grows wild near water, functions as the film’s central metaphor without being heavy-handed about it. Soon-ja plants it near the creek, and it thrives in soil that wasn’t prepared for it. The implication is clear but Chung lets the audience make the connection rather than underlining it. This restraint extends to the entire film: Chung trusts his story and his actors enough to let meaning emerge organically, and the result is a film that feels truer than most of its peers.
Should You Watch Minari?
If you respond to films about family, immigration, and the gap between dreams and reality, Minari is one of the finest examples of the decade. The performances are uniformly excellent, and the film’s emotional intelligence is rare. It’s also a valuable watch for anyone interested in stories about the American experience that center perspectives outside the dominant cultural narrative.
Skip it if very quiet, slow-paced family dramas aren’t your thing, or if you need clearly defined dramatic arcs to stay engaged. Minari doesn’t hurry, and its rewards are cumulative rather than immediate.
The Verdict on Minari
Minari is a small, perfect film about big, complicated things: family, ambition, sacrifice, and the stubborn hope that a new place might become home. Chung’s autobiographical script finds the right balance between specificity and universality, and the ensemble cast brings every relationship to vivid life. Youn Yuh-jung’s performance is a gift, and the film’s refusal to simplify its characters or their choices gives it a lasting emotional resonance that few family dramas achieve.