Minari Review - The Best Film of the Worst Year

As the end of 2020 became clear on the horizon, I found myself feeling like I hadn’t consumed enough cinema from what was being called “the worst year in film history.” I wanted to know if that statement had any truth to it. So, I made a long list of films I’d missed and set out to watch them all; and today, after a long week in front of my TV, I can say I’ve finally finished it.

Verdict: not so bad.

It’s been more than an interesting year for movies. Interesting how? Well, we’ve got to see how the studios, the filmmakers and the very humbled audience have come to react to a year with fewer films released than there have been in decades. Casual audience felt an itch where there was no longer a cinema seat beneath them, cinephiles like myself felt something stronger, more like anguish, more of a deep loss.

And so, as many films from 2020 became available, it was so much… fun getting to know unseen cinema again. Yes, I still long for the boom of Dolby sound and the bright spark of a cinema screen before my eyes, but this just about scratched that itch I mentioned.

I managed to fit in 22 films. There was only one I didn’t enjoy, that being the politically confused Hamilton, but the rest, I had a hell of a time with. Some favourites being:

First Cow
Bad Education
Soul
The Father
Sounds of Metal
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Another Round
Nomadland
Last and First Men
Shithouse

I couldn’t help but notice how adult cinema felt in a year where we were all forced to become so adult. But there was only one film that I could call the best, one film that stuck out to me as something special. That film was Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari.

Nothing from 2020 felt so tender, so human and so beautiful as Minari did. My original review for it read: “I utterly and wholely adored Minari in its entirety. A tender tale of loss and family wrapped up in a blanket of picturesque cinematography and wondrous music. The acting is genuinely perfect, especially from Steven Yeun, an actor who is completely reinventing himself right now, and he shines with pure emotion, sadness and heartache. It’s a wholesome creation, and a film I find myself falling in love with.”

Noticed I used the word ‘falling.’ Not ‘fallen.’ Minari is a picture you really have to sit with, let it rest in your mind. Don’t get me wrong, I knew it was great when I first watched it, enough to give it a 9.5/10, but with a few days to think about every corner of the perfect shape that it is, I have now fallen in love with it.

Chung presents a deep understanding of what a family is and doesn’t gloss over any of the rough edges, throwing them into a difficult situation and filling his characters with undeniable, imperfect life. All the reviews are calling it wholesome, including my own, and for good reason. The film understands just how to make you care about its characters, and the acting from the young Alan S. Kim, who is really going places, truly helps in this field, delivering such a realistically loveable child performance.

It’s a visually stunning work of art, I don’t lie when I say that Minari looks amazing, easily the best looking film of the year and Nomadland released this year too, so Minari had some decent competition in the cinematography department. Every shot felt so quietly vulnerable, capturing the 80s setting perfectly.

Everything about Minari evokes this calm and timeless wisdom, that traverses its cinematic underlayers in a bound of mesmerising cinematography and pleasing sounds. It knows just how to make you happy and just how to make you sad, showing how truly smart the script is. Minari makes you laugh and it sure as hell makes you cry. If this isn’t the best film of 2020, I don’t know what is.

Minari releases globally in February 2021