As they did in California, the couple work as chicken sexers in a warehouse, sorting female chicks from the males, which are discarded because they’re “useless.” That’s how Jacob explains it to David, anyway, a comment on his own lingering feelings of inadequacy in this new country. He works the farm at night and weekends, leaving Monica alone. To alleviate her isolation, her mother, Soonja (Yuh-Jung Youn), is brought from Korea to stay with them. Their lives will never be the same.
But the two soon bond, as Soonja intuits precisely what David needs. Because he has a heart murmur, David has had a relatively sheltered life, and he can feel his family’s anxiety. Soonja, an unpredictable force of nature, isn’t one for coddling, and their friendship eventually frees both David’s mind and spirit from worry. “Things that hide are more dangerous and scary,” she tells David, referring ostensibly to a snake they see by a stream, but really addressing the poison that comes from unexpressed feelings.
“Minari” in its entirety feels like a balm right now, a gentle, truthful and tender story of family filled with kind people trying to love one another the best they can. It’s filled with the specifics of Chung’s Korean American upbringing, but it’s also universal in its insights into the resiliency of the human spirit.
Chung has cited Flannery O’Connor’s writing as an inspiration for the way she portrayed rural Southerners searching for salvation
