Minari(2021)

Plot Summary

• In 1983, the Korean immigrant Yi family moves from California to their new plot of land in rural Arkansas, where Father Jacob (Steven Yeun) hopes to grow Korean produce to sell to vendors in Dallas. Their new home is a large trailer, which Monica (his wife) hates. One of his first decisions is to decline the services of a water diviner (who is asking for $250 for one well) and he digs a well in a spot he finds on his own.He enlists the help of Paul (Will Patton), an eccentric local man and Korean War veteran. While Jacob is optimistic about the life ahead, his wife Monica (Han Ye-Ri) is disappointed and worries about their son David's (Alan Kim) heart condition; he is frequently told not to run due to this. Jacob and Monica work sexing (sorting the chicks by their sex) chicks at the nearby hatchery and argue constantly while David and his sister Anne (Noel Kate Cho) eavesdrop. They fight about how they live in the middle of nowhere and Monica wants to be close to a hospital, school and mall. The trailer area is prone to tornadoes. Jacob buys a tractor to start his farm, which irks Monica again.To help watch the children during the day, they arrange for Monica's mother Soon-Ja (Youn Yuh-Jung) to travel from South Korea. Soon-Ja brings many gifts including Korean condiments for Monica and even brings her money. Monica is overwhelmed as she feels she never looked after her mother. David, who is forced to share a room with her, avoids her because she does not conform to his idea of how a grandmother should be (She makes him drink bad tasting medicines that she brought from Korea) (she can't cook cookies). Still, Soon-Ja attempts to adjust to life in the States and bond with the children. David makes her drink his urine one day, when she asks for mountain dew.Jacob makes progress on his farm and even constructs a shed. The well that Jacob dug runs dry. Jacob is reluctant to pay for county water, but eventually is forced to do so. Monica is concerned about all the money they are losing on the farm. He runs into additional difficulties, such as the vendor in Dallas canceling their order at the last minute. Even so, he perseveres despite Monica's vocal desire to return to California. This brings their marriage closer to breaking point. Jacob doesn't want to go back as their house there was tiny and expenses high. He sent all the money he earned back to his parents in Korea. The house has no water as all water allocation was used on the crops.Meanwhile, Soon-Ja takes David to plant Minari seeds by the creek. She tells them how resilient and useful the plant is and predicts plentiful growth. David finally begins to warm to his grandmother after she teaches him card games, bandages his wounds, and soothes him to sleep. Soon-Ja also encourages him to do more physical activity, something his parents discourage, but she says that he is stronger than they think. Soon-Ja suddenly suffers a stroke overnight. She survives with medical treatment but is left with impaired movement and speech.Jacob, Monica, Anne and David head to Oklahoma City for David's heart appointment and to meet a vendor to sell Jacob's produce. Although they learn that David's heart condition has dramatically improved and Jacob makes a deal to sell vegetables to a Korean grocer, Jacob also indirectly admits to Monica that the success of his crops is more important to him than the stability of their family. Following an emotional argument, the two tacitly agree to separate.However, Soon-Ja accidentally sets the barn containing the produce on fire in their absence. Upon arriving home, Jacob rushes in to save the crops, and Monica soon follows. Eventually, the fire grows out of control, and they decide to save each other while leaving the barn to burn. A distraught and confused Soon-Ja begins to wander off into the distance, as Anne and David call for her to come back. Seeing that she is not responding to them, David breaks into a sprint to meet her, blocking her path. Soon-Ja seems to recognize David for a moment and reaches for his hand and the grandchildren lead her back home. The family is asleep on the floor, collapsed from the fatigue of the night before. Above them, Soon-Ja is awake, in a chair, watching them sleep with a subdued expression.Sometime later, Jacob and Monica are with the water diviner who finds a spot for a well. They mark it with a stone signifying their intention to stay on the farm. Jacob and David then head to the creek to harvest the Minari, which had grown successfully, with Jacob noting how good a spot Soon-Ja had picked to plant them.

Storyline

• Jacob Yi, an ambitious family man yearning to own a small patch of land and be more than a chicken sexer, moves his Korean-American family from 1980s California to rural Arkansas to start afresh and capture the elusive American Dream. However, new beginnings are always challenging. After all, finding out what is best for the family, let alone starting a 50-acre farm to grow and sell Korean fruits and vegetables, is easier said than done. But amid sincere promises, cultural unease, fleeting hopes, and the ever-present threat of financial disaster, Jacob is confident that he has found their slice of Eden in Arkansas' rich, dark soil. Can grandma's humble but resilient minari help the Yi family find their place in the world? — Nick Riganas A Korean American family moves to an Arkansas farm in search of its own American dream. Amidst the challenges of this new life in the strange and rugged Ozarks, they discover the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home. It's the early 1980s. Married Korean-Americans Jacob and Monica Yi have moved their young family, which includes their two children Anne and David Yi, from urban California to rural Arkansas in pursuit of Jacob's dream to make a success of himself for the family. Like they did in California, Jacob and Monica will work in a factory separating baby chicks by sex for processing, in California making just enough money in such work for Jacob, as the oldest son, to send money home to his family in Korea, but also to make this move. That dream is the fifty acres of land he purchased to start a farm growing Korean vegetables for what he sees as the untapped and burgeoning market of the growing Korean-American population. But this move is not Monica's dream, especially living in the three-bedroom trailer propped on cinder blocks that is on the property as their home, the property itself which is undeveloped and largely unserviced in its isolation. One of Monica's major concerns is exactly that isolation in David having a heart defect and she wanting to be in a city to be closer to doctors and a hospital, especially important if something negative happens unexpectedly and quickly with David. That isolation also means that beyond anything she develops with people at the factory, Monica will have no social network. After some heated arguments, Jacob and Monica come to the compromise that they will stay for Jacob to try and make a go of a farm, and that they will bring Monica's long widowed mother from Korea to act as a caregiver for the children while they're at work. Grandmother's arrival into the already cramped trailer adds its own complications in the family dynamic as David has never met his maternal grandmother, who is not what he envisions an American grandmother should be. — Huggo