Page 2 - MidWeek Kauai - May 19, 2021

2 KAUA‘I MIDWEEK MAY 19, 2021
Rotten
Making It In America
BY CHRIS MCKINNEY
PAPAYAS
I watched the Oscars the other weekend. I’ m half Korean and found my-
dragged her and their two kids across the country to live in the Ozarks cut.
and Mountain Dew.
But this movie is no com-
Minari is a very familiar story. It’s simply the heartfelt, well-told tale of a struggling family trying to make it in this country ... This movie isn’t about race. There’s nothing in this film about racism in general.
self immediately rooting for Minari to win a bunch of awards.
It’s tough to blame her. Both work full-time sexing chickens, and when he’s not working, Jacob breaks his back to kick-start the farm. Their son, David, suffers from a heart condition, and they live nowhere near a hospital.
edy. There’s a lot at stake. A marriage. A grandmother’s health. The future of two little kids. An ambitious, hard-working man’s dream.
The funny thing is I didn’t even see it yet. I found my knee-jerk tribalism disturb- ing, not just because of the ignorant bias, but let’s face it: I don’t speak Korean. I’ve never been to Korea. I’m about as Korean as a jar of Kohala kimchi.
Enter Monica’s mother, Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung). She moves in with the fam- ily to provide her daughter with some companionship and help keep an eye on the kids. Youn, who won the Best Supporting Actress Os- car for her role in this film, is not the traditional American grandmother. She’s foul- mouthed. Adventurous. Hi- lariously inappropriate.
When things begin to fall apart, and Jacob begins to si- lently, crushingly doubt him- self, we see the full breadth of Yeun’s amazing acting skills. In fact, the entire cast is terrific, and the actor who surprised me most is Alan Kim. His performance is the best I’ ve seen from a child in years.
are Korean feels incidental. Also, the decision of writer/ director Lee Isaac Chung to set this semi-autobiographi- cal film in the ’80s is smart. Settings often change over time and attempting to transpose the memory of a place onto the present can be fraught with storytelling danger.
ica is that anything can flour- ish if we let it.
I can’t correct this, so I figured the least I could do is watch the movie.
Minari is currently avail- able for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime, Apple TV and other streaming plat-
Set in the 1980s, Minari is about a family that moves from California to Arkan- sas in hopes to farm Korean vegetables and sell them to a growing Korean immigrant population.
Minari is a very familiar story. It’s simply the heart- felt, well-told tale of a strug- gling family trying to make it in this country. It’s about a man who doesn’t want him- self and his wife to spend the rest of their lives working on a chicken assembly line.
forms. Youn Yuh-jung captured an Oscar for her role in Minari. AP PHOTO/CHRIS
It’s a dream driven by the family’s patriarch, Jacob (played by Steven Yeun), but is not shared by his wife, Monica (Han Ye-ri), who resents that her husband has
The culture divide be- tween her and her two Amer- ican grandchildren is played to great comedic effect. By the middle of the film, Soon- ja is hooked on pro wrestling
This movie isn’t about race. There’s nothing in this film about racism in general. The fact that these characters
Minari is the name of an East Asian herb common in Korean cuisine. In this film, the herb, planted by Soon-ja from seeds she brought with her from Korea, thrives. The central message of this film is built into this metaphor. The great thing about Amer-
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RATING: BRONZE