One of the film's great strengths is the choices that Chung makes to keep expanding the humanity of his characters. Paul the Christian seems pretty kooky at times, but he's a truly nice man, who we come to discover has pretty much nothing of his own, and his faith becomes a great source of consolation for Monica after her mother falls ill. Jacob takes enormous risks but it turns out they're for the very best of motivations, so that his children won't see their father failing again. Monica can seem severe but she very much loves Jacob. Grandma Soonja is anything but your standard grandma. And at the same time she's not perfect either.
The film also has some very satisfying section-work. When I'm watching a feature I often try to break down into discrete 10-15 minute sections of narrative, each of which has a specific problem or problems, the resolution of which becomes impetus or source of the next problem. And the opening of MINARI is a great example of this: We start with them arriving at their new home. Monica doesn't like it at all. And the the first fifteen minutes is them trying to figure out a way forward--which resolves with her agreeing to stay, as long as her mother can live with them.
The first half of Act II, while long as units go, has a similar sense of being a unified whole, built around the relationship between David and his grandmother. He starts deeply uncomfortable with her, eventually becomes more openly hostile, but then after she cheers him on for outsmarting his father's punishment over the urine incident, there's a softening.
The top of Act III has a similar sense of being a unit. We start with their problems: they are deeply strapped for cash with no clear prospects, and David's heart remains a question. In a wonderful twist, everything turns out far better than they could have dreamed--David's heart is getting better, and Jacob has finally found a buyer for his vegetables--and yet Monica's conclusion is actually a clearer sense that she and the children cannot live like this, that this is not going to end well.
It's not at all how you might expect Act III to go, given what we've seen. And that's what makes it so satisfying (if sad). It's another great example of the power of a story in which a character is given what they want and it ends up being a bad thing. And yet there's no sense of punishment to it. Neither Jacob nor Monica is any kind of a villain. They're two people who love each other and yet don't quite fit together. There's something so very real in that sense of disconnection.
Then out of nowhere we get Grandma accidentally starting a fire which will burn down all of the produce Jacob has spent a year fighting for, and effectively destroy his future entirely. It's a terrible, terrible coincidence.
And as such also a problem. Because it doesn't follow from anything that's come before. Yes, we've seen Monica and Anne burn trash. But we've never seen Grandma do anything like that, or clean up around the farm either. And while she's had a stroke, we've also seen nothing to suggest she's now mentally impaired. So the fact that she would suddenly do any of these things is hard to explain. It reads as an imperative of the writer rather than the characters.
And the final scenes, in which Monica and Jacob have now stayed together, do nothing to answer the question as to what has changed to make Monica change her view. If anything the fact that they're digging a new well signals they've gone even further into debt.
There's that old adage that in planning your film you should start with the last scene. It tells you where you want to go. But our insistence on landing the plane in a certain field can also get in the way. Monica's decision to leave Jacob is painful for sure, but it also felt so right. Somehow the very surprise of it granted it a kind of confirmation.
To ignore that and instead insert a whole other surprise twist is a challenge to accept.
Takeaway Questions: Can I break my script into discrete units, with clear beginnings, complications and resolutions? And is my ending where the characters want to go?
