The Real Best Picture of the Year

 

The pandemic year of 2020 was awful for movies.   As we sat on our couches, we were subjected to one dreary, dark mess after another.    Not a single one of the Oscar nominees I watched via stream brought an uplifting note...let alone...a smile to my life.

Until "Minari," a film I truly wish I could see on a big screen some day.   Knowing full well that it will be a movie that merits repeat viewings with yours truly.

It's the simplest of plots.   A young Korean family moves to Arkansas in 1983 to seek a life different from the one they have experienced in California.  Dad's hope is to have a farm that specializes in Korean vegetables.   Mom's pretty skeptical.  Neither of their children want to be there.  And it is this group of lives that we get to see unfold in very small incremental episodes.    

To help with the kids, Mom brings her mother to live with them and Grandma (a Supporting Actress Oscar turn by Youn Yuh-jung) doesn't hit it off with the young boy David.   In an effort to connect with the kid, she takes him out to help plant what she hopes will grow to be minari, which is a celery-like plant.

Naturally, as with all families, there are arguments.   There is marital strife.  There are health issues.   There are water issues which is absolute poison to a farmer.

Essentially, it is life in America as perfectly depicted by director Lee Isaac Chung.

What I truly loved about "Minari" was this.   In the self-conscious film making world of Hollywood in 2020, you would expect that this family would be greeted by one racial insult after another.   Maybe there would be violent acts, etc.  Nope.  Indeed, this Arkansas community accepts this family as one of their own.   The children are invited for sleep overs.   The family is welcomed every Sunday at the community church.  

So much for systemic racism.

I so did not want the simplicity of "Minari" to end.   It gave me hope that movies can be uplifting again without messages that are hammered into your skull by some bloviating film maker.  

"Minari" got a bunch of nominations and frankly is light years more interesting than the annoying despair presented in junk like "Nomadland."   It won my Best Picture of the Year award.

By far!

LEN'S RATING:  Four stars.

Dinner last night:  Leftover pork tenderloin.