Lee Isaac Chung is good at keeping people in view when the weather threatens to overwhelm them. His move from intimate dramas to studio spectacle makes sense, though Twisters shows how easily concern for characters can become a drag.
Fi1m perspective
In Twisters (2024), cinematographer Dan Mindel gives two thirds of the frame to the sky, with flat, green Oklahoma beneath it. Chung lets us see the weather coming from a long way off, then stays down with the people exposed to it. We were properly frightened by the storms, above all by the roar that seemed to have no edges. He understands how to make a landscape threatening without making it hard to read. He can handle this scale of filmmaking; the trouble is what happens when the wind drops.
His route there began with Munyurangabo (2007), made in Rwanda with non-professional actors and students. Lucky Life (2010) and Abigail Harm (2012) followed, then the semi-autobiographical family drama Minari (2020). In Minari, his work with the ensemble makes the family roles feel specific enough for personal material to reach beyond its author's experience. An episode of The Mandalorian, directed in 2023, gave him experience of effects-heavy production before his first studio blockbuster. The move towards action is less puzzling when we consider his interest in people having to change under pressure.
Yet Twisters is only a qualified recommendation, and the interruptions are the problem. Kate, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, has to decide whether to return to storm chasing after an early attempt goes badly. Chung keeps making room for her sadness when the film needs to get moving, and a familiar script gives him little fresh to uncover. Glen Powell supplies welcome confidence as Tyler, a chaser who pursues storms for an online audience and sells T-shirts from his truck. More of that pleasure in the job would have helped.
We would not take Twisters as evidence that Chung belongs only with smaller stories. When he keeps the camera at ground level, he makes the danger comprehensible without reducing its force. That is a useful skill, and the shift to large-scale filmmaking has not cost him his interest in the people caught up in it. On the next such outing, we would welcome a little less time spent dwelling on their troubles.
Biography
Lee Isaac Chung (born 19 October 1978) is an American filmmaker. His debut feature, Munyurangabo (2007), premiered as an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival and was the first narrative feature film in the Kinyarwanda language.
Chung wrote and directed the semi-autobiographical drama Minari (2020), which received a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 93rd Academy Awards. He directed an episode of the third season of the Disney+ series The Mandalorian (2023) and the disaster film Twisters (2024).
