At a hatchery in rural Arkansas, workers sort baby chicks by sex in order to identify which ones will be able to lay eggs and which ones won’t. Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun) explains this process to his 7-year-old son David (Alan S. Kim) in Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari as they watch the ash from the unwanted chicks billow into the sky. Jacob frames it as a lesson for David: because male chicks don’t taste as good and they can’t lay eggs, they get turned to smoke. “So you and I should try to be useful.”
This ethos of productivity guides Jacob’s decisions throughout the film, whether it’s uprooting his family to take a chance on a farm or using up the water supply meant for their home on the crops instead. He stakes everything on the success of the farm – his pride, his happiness and his family’s future and finances. Even as his wife Monica (Han Yeri) reaches her limit and resolves to walk away from a fantasy she never fully bought into, Jacob insists that his way is the only way forward for their family – the only way to be useful.
The reality check that accompanies any attempt to grasp the American Dream is well-trodden ground by this point, but Minari offers a spin on the familiar narrative by asking who is allowed to do the dreaming and who has little choice but to hold on and brace themselves for the ride. The film opens with Monica’s glances in the rearview mirror, her mind on her old life in California that she’s driving further and further away from. She may be in the driver’s seat, but she’s a passenger in Jacob’s dream, trailing the moving van he’s steering toward their new home. Monica doesn’t seem to have any grand ambitions aside from earning enough to cover treatment for David’s heart murmur, and she could do that in Arkansas, California or any other state where there’s work sorting chicks. Jacob’s dreams, on the other hand, have firm roots in Ozark soil so unprofitable that its previous owner eventually committed suicide – a cautionary tale to which locals allude throughout the film. At one point during a fight with Monica, he yells that as the eldest son of his family, it’s in his nature to provide, to know what’s best for those under his protection. In other words: Monica, David, older sister Anne (Noel Kate Cho) and Monica’s mother Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung) are the followers. Jacob is the leader. Minari tells the story of creeping disillusionment with the inflated promise of not only America, but also a patriarchal structure that harms everyone – including the head of the family on whom it confers so much responsibility and pressure. When it seems like Jacob has come to value the farm’s success more than being present as a husband and father, Monica tells him: “I’ve lost my faith in you.” It takes a raging fire and the threat of moral peril to snap them out of their stalemate, remind them of the love that their marriage was first founded on and make them reconsider whether they still want to fight for it. Only once Jacob understands that the vision of fatherhood and masculinity that he was striving for is unattainable can he move forward with Monica and rebuild their family. The American Dream is not what the Yis expected, and neither is marriage, but there’s plenty of hope and tenderness to be found regardless.
Minari is the loosely autobiographical retelling of director and writer Lee Isaac Chung’s upbringing in rural America during the 1980s. In many ways, it’s also the story of my dad, who emigrated from South Korea as a kid in 1979. His family’s first American home was a trailer on the dusty roads of Dover, Delaware, and his parents worked long hours in a chicken factory – not sorting chickens by sex like Jacob and Monica, but pulling them apart, limb from limb, so the wings and breasts and thighs could be processed separately. Like David, my dad watched his parents struggle to keep their heads above the water as new immigrants to a country that was indifferent at best and hostile at worst. All that fear and frustration simmered between them, regularly escalating into yelling matches that my dad and his siblings couldn’t help but overhear through the thin trailer walls. Like David, my dad was often the only Asian face in the room and got singled out by his peers as an alien, a curiosity to be studied like an insect under a magnifying glass. Like David, my dad found himself caught between two cultures, never quite knowing how to reconcile them into one whole identity.
I was born and raised in the U.S. and grew up surrounded by so many fellow Asian American kids that the idea that I was technically a “minority” felt like a joke. I never worried about where my next meal was coming from, or if it was coming at all. I’ve always taken survival for granted; my parents didn’t have that luxury. But the little rituals that form the rhythm and lyricism of Minari feel like my life, too. Monica cleaning out David’s ears with a wooden ear pick. Soonja sleeping on the floor beside David’s bed and keeping him awake with her snores. Monica tearing up because her mom brought her authentic Korean chili paste and anchovies, ingredients she otherwise wouldn’t be able to find for miles. David and Soonja spending hours in their own sleepy little world while Monica and Jacob are out working. Throughout the film, my sister and I glanced at each other often in silent delight, feeling the thrill of connection to a shared history and cultural shorthand. If I was a first-generation immigrant, it might be easier to single out a particular character that feels like my avatar, the way my dad did with David. Instead, it’s the portrayal of the Yi family as a collective that I found the most evocative and honest. How they bond, how they fight, how they show their love, how they indulge and resent and support each other – it’s all so familiar and dear to me.
Youn Yuh-jung Gets Her Flowers
E. Alex Jung’s profile of Youn Yuh-jung, who plays Monica’s mother (Soonja) in Minari, is masterful, as expected. I grew up watching Youn play the cranky grandmother on more Korean dramas than I can count, but I never knew much about the woman behind the characters or her wild ride of a career.
This quote in particular has stuck with me:
The thing about reverence is it makes you soft. In Korea, everyone calls Youn sunsaengnim, which translates to “teacher” or “master.” “In Korea, nobody will correct me. If I want to settle and do the same thing over and over, I’ll become a monster,” she says. Minari provided the tonic of unfamiliarity. “In Tulsa, I’m nobody to them. A newcomer. I need to prove myself with my acting.”
8-year-old Alan S. Kim Speaks Better Korean Than Me
Alan S. Kim has been on the most adorable press tour in recorded human history. In an interview with W Korea, he shows off his Konglish, shouts out his older sister (currently playing young Elsa on the Broadway National Tour of Frozen), reveals himself to be a member of the BTS ARMY and says his role model is Steven Yeun (my heart!!!).
Lee Isaac Chung Is a Girl Who Reads™
While being interviewed by J.J. Abrams for some reason, Lee Isaac Chung mentioned that Willa Cather’s novel My Antonia was part of the impetus for him to make Minari and leave something behind for his daughter (who’s around the age David is in the film). A win for the intersection of Willa Cather fans and Minari enthusiasts!
Speaking of his daughter – I’m still side-eyeing the Golden Globes for nominating Minari in the Foreign Language Films category, but at least we got Lee Isaac Chung and his daughter being adorable when he won.
Juergen Teller Will Pay for This
I have been trying and failing to find the words to express how much this image pains me. Steven Yeun, sweetie, I am so sorry.
Diana Markosian for GQ more than made up for it, capturing Steven Yeun in all his rugged cowboy glory. The accompanying feature story, written by Chris Gayomali, is appropriately soulful and contemplative. At one point, Steven Yeun describes the anxiety that accompanied his task of portraying Korean fatherhood for a wide audience:
“There's this built-in Voltron image of what an Asian dad is supposed to be, and to break through that is kind of difficult,” he added. “To not just break through the expectations of others, but also to break through the gaze in your own mind.
“We profess that we're caught in the white American gaze, and that's true. But we forget that we are also that gaze. That gaze is encoded into us, and the last boss is yourself.”
One last thing about Steven Yeun’s performance: He might find this condescending coming from someone more than a decade his junior, but I’m proud of him for working on his Korean to make it sound as natural as possible in Minari. I have a conspicuously American accent when I speak Korean (a fact that tough older waitresses at Korean BBQ restaurants won’t let me forget), so I feel his pain and applaud his efforts, which really paid off in this film.
Han Yeri Is the Emotional Anchor of Minari
Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz wrote a piece celebrating Han Yeri’s achingly taut performance and how she captures the spirit of immigrant mothers. Monica’s frustration and resentment form the undercurrent of tension that gives this deceptively tranquil-seeming film depth. I see so much of my mom in her, from her need to line every drawer of a new home with paper to her devout faith.
My favorite paragraph from Singh-Kurtz’s piece:
If you’re a first-generation American, you may have felt this too, because Han gives us our mothers — their self-denial, their sacrifices, and their repression — and this makes Minari a more difficult film to watch. You leave it feeling more uneasy than if you saw the “gentle” and “intimate” immigrant story it has been described as because you have to ask yourself what becomes of Monica. Does she leave Arkansas and move to the city? Or does she stay, sexing chickens her entire life so her son can make movies? Is she ever happy?
Name a More Iconic Duo Than Bong Joon-ho & Youn Yuh-jung
Among the many gems dropped from this chat between two legends (there are English subtitles for any non-Korean speakers) is the fact that Youn Yuh-jung said she signed onto Minari because she heard Brad Pitt’s company Plan B would be producing it, assumed that meant it would have a sizable budget and then miscalculated the exchange rate from the U.S. dollar to South Korean won.
From the Suburbs of the DMV to Hollywood
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any solo press coverage or interviews with Noel Kate Cho, who plays Anne, the eldest Yi sibling who’s imbued with the collective long-suffering spirit of firstborn immigrant daughters. Apparently she hails from Virginia, though, so she joins the ranks of East Coast Asians in Show Biz along with Constance Wu.