Dear M. (2022)

Se volete una storia d'amore all'università

Non aspettatevi di dovervi munire di fazzoletti o di avere il cuore a 2000, ma.
Questo drama è adatto a chi cerca una storia (o più) d'amore ambientata durante l'università, ma allo stesso tempo non cerca nulla di troppo emozionante o un mistery con i contro cazz*. La storia è proprio semplice e basilare ma svolge bene il suo compito. Ho apprezzato tantissimo come sono state raccontate tutte le coppie, tranne la mia preferita ma non mi lamento troppo XD. Il drama per quanto semplice è ben costruito e raccontato, ogni cosa è stata gestita bene. Non ho davvero moltissimo da dire perchè tutto quello che penso è qua.
Una visione carina e molto rilassante. Una bella storia d'amore.

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Really Enjoyable but Also Trope-y with a Side of Flaws

If I rated this purely on my emotional enjoyment, I would give it a 10 out of 10: this is a fun college drama chock full of romantic feelings and character-made drama. Its premise reminded me of a toned-down version of Gossip Girl: all the characters are initially connected by a mysterious blogger who falls in love at first sight and makes them all re-evaluate their own crushes, loves, and relationships as they speculate as to the identify of this person. I had known nothing about the parent story for which this show is based on, Love Playlist, but had been drawn to early descriptions of this drama and the trailer that eventually came out.

That said, when I take emotion out of it, I find story and characters that are a bit limited by traditional romance story tropes that are unashamedly invoked: you have CLEAR "nice guys/good girls" and CLEAR "a-hole [male] players/manipulative [female] witches." Their backstories can get a little cliche too with clearly-sympathetic tragedies and traditional parental issues/ambitions to succeed. I would argue that seasoned romance series/Kdrama watchers will be able to completely predict almost all, if not all of the story progression, from beginning to end, just within the first few episodes. Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, I don't think so - enjoyable is enjoyable. However, I think if you are considering watching this, you should know exactly what it is and what it is not: it's a simple, cute story about college kids' falling in love and having challenges with their relationships while going through college. It's not a grandiose, unique story with fantastical mind-bending twists or deep meaning.

There are some clear continuity errors and contrived plot points in the story - they aren't horrendous, but they are very noticeable. For a non-spoiler example, at one point a character loses their phone. By the next episode, they mysteriously have recovered it/might have bought a new one - how exactly did they get this back/buy a new one and input all their old, same contacts in? As for the contrived plot points, I don't want to spoil anything for you, so I will vaguely say that sometimes, things that happen or motivations that the characters have are way too "on the nose" and I personally would have preferred that the show be a little more subtle about it.

The acting is sufficient for a Kdrama, but notably decreased a notch from other big budget performances: for example, I found some of the crying scenes so forced and unbelievable that those momentarily took me out of the drama. However, if you put those weaknesses aside, I think you find a cast that is very believable and does a good job: this is apparently Jeong Jae Hyun's acting debut, and I honestly never would have known that if I didn't read it in an article. I wasn't a Park Hye Soo fan to begin with, but her performance will make me check out some of other works, as I loved the sincerity with which she played Ma Joo Ah. For other characters, many will recognize Roh Jeong Eui from her prior performance as NJ in Our Beloved Summer and I think you will find her performance refreshing as she definitely sells her performance as a different type of person. I also found Lee Jin Hyuk particularly hilarious as the clearly-comic-relief character who gets crapped on just for our benefit, and particularly enjoyed the straight-forward, independent person played by Woo Da Vi. Hwang Bo Reum Byeol and Lee Jung Sic round out the rest of the notables by playing appropriately hateable characters. Overall, I really enjoyed the ensemble cast.

As of writing, the OST seems to be unreleased/still coming out, but I think they did a good job. Park Hye Soo originally wanted to be a singer (she is from Kpop star) and Jeong Jae Hyun is part of NCT, so they naturally do an excellent job with the song covers featured in this Kdrama. I don't think there are any bangers that will be sung for the ages, but don't let you stop enjoying the songs that do exist.

Overall, I think this is a light, easy watch to pick up. You won't find anything groundbreaking, but don't let that stop you from giving this a try - I can't say it's an absolute work of art, but I think if lighthearted romances are your cup of tea, you'll enjoy this.

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