Art, Failure, and the Small Death of Other People’s Success
We Are All Trying Here is one of the best K-dramas I’ve seen in a long time. Not because it’s “important” or relentlessly realistic, but because it feels so alive and so aware of itself at the same time.
The acting is incredible across the board, but especially Dong-man. It’s one of those performances where after a while it stops feeling like acting at all. He never drops character for even a second. There’s no visible effort, no actorly “look how damaged and chaotic I am” energy. He just completely inhabits the role. And considering how difficult the character is — funny, pathetic, intelligent, cruel, charismatic, self-deluding, deeply wounded — it would have been so easy to tip into caricature. But he never does. Dong-man always feels like a real person rather than a type.
The female lead is equally good. She feels fully real in herself rather than just existing to soften or redeem him. Even small reactions and silences in this drama feel inhabited.
It’s also beautifully shot, but in a very self-aware way. The drama constantly points at cinematic language while using it — the strident guitar cue, the “heroine takes control of her life” moment, the artistic suffering, the dramatic framing — and then fully commits to it anyway. It almost feels like a drama about dramas sometimes, or filmmaking talking about filmmaking while it’s happening. It absolutely knows how good it is.
Normally that kind of thing would annoy me or create distance, but here it somehow works because the self-awareness becomes part of the pleasure. We’re engaged rather than fully immersed. The drama stands slightly outside itself, watching itself perform, while still managing to move me emotionally.
Some people will probably call it bleak because the themes are harsh: abandonment, suicide, alienation, shame, failure, loneliness. But it never feels completely heavy to me. Partly because of the humour, partly because of the self-awareness, but mostly because there’s something fundamentally redemptive underneath it all.
There are really two redemptive movements happening throughout the story. One is potential slowly ripening — potential in talent, creativity, relationships, forgiveness, growth. The drama is very interested in the possibility that people can still become more than the worst thing they’ve done or the life they currently seem trapped inside.
The other is recognition. People slowly start understanding themselves more clearly. Motivations get named. Defences get exposed. Characters are constantly acting and reflecting at the same time. The drama understands how much cruelty comes from fear, humiliation and hurt rather than simple evil. People become monstrous one moment and deeply sympathetic the next.
It’s also one of the sharpest portrayals of jealousy I’ve seen. Not cartoon jealousy, but the painful ordinary kind — the small part of us that wants our friends to succeed, but not quite more than us. The film industry becomes a perfect setting for this because success is so unstable and comparative. People love each other, admire each other, resent each other and compete with each other all at once.
That’s probably what I find most moving about it. Nobody is flattened into hero or villain. Everyone is trying, failing, hurting each other, performing versions of themselves, wanting to be seen, and still reaching toward connection anyway.
The acting is incredible across the board, but especially Dong-man. It’s one of those performances where after a while it stops feeling like acting at all. He never drops character for even a second. There’s no visible effort, no actorly “look how damaged and chaotic I am” energy. He just completely inhabits the role. And considering how difficult the character is — funny, pathetic, intelligent, cruel, charismatic, self-deluding, deeply wounded — it would have been so easy to tip into caricature. But he never does. Dong-man always feels like a real person rather than a type.
The female lead is equally good. She feels fully real in herself rather than just existing to soften or redeem him. Even small reactions and silences in this drama feel inhabited.
It’s also beautifully shot, but in a very self-aware way. The drama constantly points at cinematic language while using it — the strident guitar cue, the “heroine takes control of her life” moment, the artistic suffering, the dramatic framing — and then fully commits to it anyway. It almost feels like a drama about dramas sometimes, or filmmaking talking about filmmaking while it’s happening. It absolutely knows how good it is.
Normally that kind of thing would annoy me or create distance, but here it somehow works because the self-awareness becomes part of the pleasure. We’re engaged rather than fully immersed. The drama stands slightly outside itself, watching itself perform, while still managing to move me emotionally.
Some people will probably call it bleak because the themes are harsh: abandonment, suicide, alienation, shame, failure, loneliness. But it never feels completely heavy to me. Partly because of the humour, partly because of the self-awareness, but mostly because there’s something fundamentally redemptive underneath it all.
There are really two redemptive movements happening throughout the story. One is potential slowly ripening — potential in talent, creativity, relationships, forgiveness, growth. The drama is very interested in the possibility that people can still become more than the worst thing they’ve done or the life they currently seem trapped inside.
The other is recognition. People slowly start understanding themselves more clearly. Motivations get named. Defences get exposed. Characters are constantly acting and reflecting at the same time. The drama understands how much cruelty comes from fear, humiliation and hurt rather than simple evil. People become monstrous one moment and deeply sympathetic the next.
It’s also one of the sharpest portrayals of jealousy I’ve seen. Not cartoon jealousy, but the painful ordinary kind — the small part of us that wants our friends to succeed, but not quite more than us. The film industry becomes a perfect setting for this because success is so unstable and comparative. People love each other, admire each other, resent each other and compete with each other all at once.
That’s probably what I find most moving about it. Nobody is flattened into hero or villain. Everyone is trying, failing, hurting each other, performing versions of themselves, wanting to be seen, and still reaching toward connection anyway.
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