Director Lee Isaac Chung, sat down to write a final screenplay before taking on a ‘real job ‘for the sake of his family. Taking inspiration from Willa Cather, he closed his eyes and wrote down memories of his childhood.

He remembered arriving at the trailer that would be his family’s home and the disappointment of his mother, the smell of freshly ploughed earth and his father’s delight at the colour. With 80 memories, he wove a narrative that became Minari.

The centre of the film is David (Alan Kim), a child caught between two cultures and observing the struggle of his parents to succeed in 80s America as new immigrants. His father Jacob (Steven Yeun) has traded in the safety of work in California to start a garden in Arkansas.

His father is an innovator though, and has a brainwave to grow Korean vegetables to fill a niche that is perhaps 30 years too early. We feel we know where this is going and his self-dug well and the fate of the last farmer that tilled that land foreshadows the fate of perhaps any novice farmer.

What is unexpected is the lush and vibrant evocation of a childhood. The camera lingers on small scenes – a bowl floating in a bucket, water flowing from a tap – and the narrative spins around the indomitable character of David. A stand out is grandmother Soon-ja, with actor Youn Yuh-jung deservedly winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role, and the relationship between her and David, generations that represent Korea and America. The minari plant is important, a water plant that in Korea signifies spring and is a cure and a salve, and that will take root and thrive, perhaps like the many immigrants seeking a new life.

There is heartbreak and beauty, tragedy and hope. I am writing this review in the days after Trump was re-elected for a second term though and I wonder at the fate of the millions of immigrants in America in the coming years. Chung’s film may represent something that is no longer possible.