‘They need to see me succeed at something for once...’
Some Best Picture winners are boring (looking at you The English Patient), and so it figures that by extension, some Best Picture nominees must also be boring. And I suppose in a year in which mainstream cinema has been utterly decimated by a global pandemic, the field to choose from is even narrower. And yet, it always shocks me when a film this boring is nominated for the most prestigious golden statue in Hollywood…
When a Korean family moves to Arkansas, their dreams of a better life are foiled at every turn by financial woes, difficult children and the appearance of an eccentric Grandmother (Yuh-Jung Youn). Jacob (Steven Yeun), the patriarch of the family, stoically goes about his business anyway, despite near constant setbacks.
So, a familiar fish out of water tale, if one that is based on the personal experiences of writer/director Lee Isaac Chung. The culture clashes are, to Chung’s credit, played down here, in favour of a more intimate and general comment on family life. The fact that the family at the centre of the plot are Korean is largely inconsequential in terms of their ability to achieve success. Their economic class is much more detrimental than their race.
To begin with a positive, the central cast are solid throughout, with Yeun – breaking free from the constraints of playing Glen on The Walking Dead – being ably supported by Yeri Han as his long suffering wife Monica. Newcomer Alan S. Kim also gives a charming performance as David, the troubled, bed-wetting youngest child who offers many of Minari’s best moments. Others have also raved about Yuh-Jung Youn’s foul-mouthed, Mountain Dew loving Grandma, and yet her performance did very little for me here. She seemed more like an annoying caricature, a plot device, comic relief, rather than a fully fleshed out character. Indeed, her presence is mostly jarring to the solemn seriousness that defines the rest of the film.
Aside from a mostly competent showing from the cast, there are some beautiful tracking shots of the Arkansas countryside, a few quietly funny moments in the script, and then… not much else. Minari is the kind of film that I had forgotten about completely almost the second after the credits rolled.
An Oscar nominated, critically acclaimed film that had absolutely zero emotional impact on me. Must be something I missed…