Minari (2020, Lee Isaac Chung) (Patreon)

55/100

Oddly similar in its broad strokes to The Nest, though obviously a dirt-poor (but also dirt-rich!) Korean family in Arkansas faces more significant challenges than does an American(-ish) family uprooted to a cavernous Surrey mansion. While I much prefer Durkin's offbeat, genre-inflected, exceedingly moody approach to childhood reminiscence, Chung's early life—at least as semi-fictionalized here—often fascinates; assimilation stories tend to be as strong as they are specific, and stray details like the difficulty of finding chili powder in the U.S. ca. the mid-'80s ("We even drove eight hours to Dallas. And it wasn't very good") paint a vivid picture of rocky adjustment. As someone who spent 4th through 8th grade joined at the hip with a second-generation Chinese boy (named Hubert!), spending lots of time at his house around the corner, I appreciated this film's matter-of-fact depiction of little-kid friendship, with cultural differences briefly questioned and then taken in stride. Would have liked more insight into the daughter, perhaps, but Minari's fine cast, low-key verisimilitude and occasional bursts of weirdness (mostly courtesy of Will Patton) make for the same sort of mildly affecting multi-gen portrait that I've come to expect from Kore-eda. Unfortunately, it appears as if act three got workshopped and/or McKee'd to death, with the climactic marital argument (does Dad value his crops more than his family?) immediately followed by a clarifying random emergency (he does not), then by David finally breaking into a full run (having just been given encouraging news about his heart condition), followed by a good ol' full-circle ending in which Dad decides to dig his new well where the dowser says (because being American apparently means being gullible as fuck*; don’t think I can really argue with that thesis at present). Not what I expected from a director whose debut premiered in Un Certain Regard, but nobody saw that film (or his next two) and this one is nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, so Chung clearly knows what he's doing. 

* To be fair, there's evidence that some dowsers genuinely can find water with a success rate significantly higher than chance would indicate. But their talent lies in observation, which they consciously or unconsciously transfer to the stick (specifically, to their wrist muscles). Blindfold a dowser, so that they can't see the landscape, and any such ability will vanish. So they're really using the same method that Jacob did—it's just a matter of potentially being better at it than he is.