Minari

It’s at once intimate and expansive – a film with a big heart and not a bad word to say about anyone.

The most efficient review of Minari would be something along the lines of “It’s wonderful. See it. You’ll love it.” But you need to know more than that about Lee Isaac Chung’s partly autobiographical drama.

Everybody’s talking about this unassuming, but also unmissable and unforgettable slice of Korean-American life and for good reason: Lee Isaac Chung’s heartfelt tale of his own childhood is the best movie you’ll find anywhere about what it means to be a family.

Chung transforms the specificity of his upbringing into something warm, tender and universal.

What makes this more than just another formulaic feelgood film is the grit with which Chung evokes the hardscrabble lives of his characters, balancing the dreamier elements of the drama with a naturalism that keeps it rooted in reality.

Chung’s nuanced portrait of a family figuring out their place in the world is both small and somehow rather grand.

The narrow and merely illustrative drama is matched, unfortunately, by an impersonal cinematography that fails to suggest texture or intimacy.

It's that kind of movie who made you feel happier at the end and after of that, and the score was perfect, sometimes I felt high.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Minari revolves around a family trying to live out the "American Dream" after moving from California to Arkansas to start a farm. There are plenty of touching and funny moments throughout and good acting by the cast that helps drive the film despite a couple of flaws that keep it down. The movie struggles in the second half as it plays out rather predictably while also dealing with an incredibly slow pace that the first half didn't deal with. It brings the movie down quite a bit IMO but it doesn't make it unwatchable. If you're looking for a decent drama to watch then, by all means, give it a shot, but I think it can hit one too many familiar tropes along the way that prevent it from truly being great.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Boring. Just boring. A story about a farmer. nothing more. the storylines are not revealed, they have not heard about the motivation of the characters at all. it would be better to have seen half of the Justice League during this time. what an Oscar nomination for?