The Martha's Vineyard Times
Asian American life on an Arkansas farm
“Minari,” a warmhearted, semiautobiographical film about an Asian American family, is playing at the M.V. Film Center. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung and set in the 1980s, it narrates the story of the Yi family, who move to Arkansas to start a farm. The film takes its name from the Korean plant that is equivalent to Japanese parsley or Chinese celery. It’s a hardy vegetable that thrives in many places.
Jacob Yi is played by Steve Yeun, who was profiled recently in the NY Times Magazine. As Jacob, he settles his wife Monica (Yeri Han), son David (Alan Kim), and daughter Anne (Noel Kate Cho) in a secondhand trailer on 50 acres of Arkansas farmland. Monica, who liked her former life in California, is not too happy about relocating to the middle of the country, even though land there is a lot cheaper. The film is filled with the kind of appealing and sometimes funny details that make up the Yis’ life as immigrants.