Will love keep us together, forever?

Minari ('Water Celery' American-Korean, English; 2021)

Written and Directed: Lee Isaac Chung

Most immigrants stories harbour melodrama which relies so heavily on wanting to play the victim card. They often portray their hosts as dysfunctional and that the pathetic immigrants are bullied and blamed for things that are no fault of theirs. Well, this one is different.

They left their motherland because it was too complicated there. Life in their newfound land is no leisure cruise either, they soon discover. Spending hours looking at chicken backside for the onerous task of chicken sexing is not cerebrally stimulating, but it pays the bill. When Jacob decides to move from California to the Ozark Land (Arkansas) for farming, his wife, Monica, thinks he is bonkers. With a young teenage girl to groom and a 'hole in the heart' stricken tween boy who needs regular medical attention, Monica is sceptical of the whole endeavour's success. Maternal Grandma, Soonja, is summoned from Korea to help to mind the kids. Herein starts a problem. The kids do not look at Soonja as Grandma material. She does not speak English and does not tell stories.

Monica, the religious of the two, hopes to find solace in the church and its congregants. Their first attendance proved an inconvenience as they could not fit into the mostly white crowd. Jacob getting along with his farming with the help of a war veteran, Paul, who himself is pretty fanatical with his religiosity.

Jacob feels that all life challenges can be met with sheer human intelligence, whereas his wife believes that God's grace guides us. So, when drought hits the land and he cannot get customers for his produce, the couple has to make tough decisions about their marriage.

Are decisions in a marriage a compromise? Is love strong enough an anchor to steer the metaphorical family ship through the storm? Can traditional teachings and intangible beliefs provide a bedrock in bringing everyone together to weather hurdles in life?

A sober, slow-moving movie tackles many immigrants' issues in a subtle, unhurried and non-condescending way.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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