At just 83 minutes long, Kim’s Convenience may be short, and set entirely in a small corner store, but it embraces the big stuff: family, regret, forgiveness, the need for belonging. Ultimately, it asks: What is the story of a life? Is it the work we do, the things we accumulate, or the other lives we touch along the way?
Appa (Ins Choi) runs a convenience store, where toiletries and “Canada” T-shirts share space with Korean flags in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Toronto. When he’s not launching into tirades about the history of Korea, he bluntly roasts customers and pressures his adult daughter Janet (Kelly Seo) to successfully live up to his high immigrant-parent expectations. (Years prior, his son Jung [Ryan Jinn] chafed under his pressure, cut all ties after a violent fight, and left the house.)
Adding to the thickness in the air, a Walmart is set to open nearby. A real estate developer offers to buy Appa’s store, where business isn’t exactly brisk. Alex (Brandon McKnight), a childhood friend of Jung who’s now a cop, stops in and is mesmerized by Janet, who is similarly love-stricken. While sparks fly between the two, we learn that Umma (Esther Chung), Appa’s wife, has secretly been meeting with Jung at their local church.
That all of this gets resolved neatly and hilariously over the course of a single day is a testament to Choi’s taut script. As the playwright, Choi based the story on his own immigrant family, and his acting performance as Appa carries extra emotional weight. He also garners the largest howls of laughter, whether explaining to Janet the different types of customers who shoplift, or persistently offering Alex some snacks for the road in an accent so thick that you’ll never think of chocolate-covered peanuts the same way again.
Kim’s Convenience will especially resonate with second-generation audience members, or anyone who’s ever worked behind the counter of a small mom ‘n’ pop retail business. But its themes cut across all ethnic and economic lines, exemplified in a monologue by Appa about a Korean shopkeeper in South Central L.A. during the Rodney King riots, and the unlikely bond between the owner and the Black residents of the neighborhood during a time of high tensions.
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