Minari

(Screenig with short film SMASHED).... Steven Yeun (Okja, SFF 2017; Burning, SFF 2018; The Walking Dead) is fantastic as Jacob Yi, a Korean immigrant who is determined to make a success of his life in America. Though his wife Monica (Yeri Han) is deeply sceptical, he moves the family to rural 1980s Arkansas with the hope of creating a viable farm on land that has been historically unproductive. His young son David and daughter Anne have mixed feelings about this move: at first excited by their new mobile home, they soon grow bored being in a backwater. The arrival of their foul-mouthed but loving grandmother (a sparkling Youn Yuh-jung, The Housemaid) from Korea brings new energy to the family dynamic, but Jacob’s determination to make it as a successful farmer throws the family’s finances, and its relationships, into peril. Clearly a deeply personal project for Lee Isaac Chung, Minari tenderly immerses itself lives of these delicately drawn characters.