This review may contain spoilers
Flat
It's sad that such a great cast, wonderful cinematography and a fitting soundtrack can't guarantee a good drama.
Everything feels flat, aloof and shallow. The characters, the story, the dialogues. You can't stand on sand castles, you need a firm ground.
Every character feels like a plot device for a superficial life lesson. I felt like this is a story told to teach basic concepts to children. "People have secrets", "You'll never get to know someone fully", "Parents showing up means they love you", "There's labour parents or caregivers do in the shadows", "People should be supported by friends and family in hard times", "Honesty is one of the pillars of a relationship", etc.
What irked me the most was the character's unidimensionality. They're just one thing. ML is a people-pleaser, FL is mean to hide the softness she says she has, SFL is subservient, SML is selfish and the brother is depressed. Because the brother is depressed and people who are depressed lose interest in life, he's shown to have no personality and that's a very extreme way of telling a story, it's something typically done in children stories to help them learn basic concepts.
Kim Jae Wook is an extraordinary actor and could even breathe life into an empty corpse. He's, honestly, the highlight in this drama. His character is shown as the miserable one whose life only brings him down. At one point, SML says that Jun lived his life the way he wanted to live. No, Jun didn't live his life the way he wanted. He didn't exist in the drama prior to their parents died, kid ML doesn't reference him in his life, he knows nothing about him, and he got stuck with raising a kid at 20 years old. He didn't have a choice. He lived for that kid and was mostly glad to do it. Since he didn't seem to exist prior to their parents death, he just became a flat character with a black and white existence. No dreams, no aspirations, no words, not thoughts, as if living a hard life to survive turns you into a literal zombie with no life or a personality. He was there to contrast with ML existence and bring it to life. It's sad, such a possibly rich story could be simply a plot device for a mediocre kid with fear of abandonment as his only trait.
Being neglected as a child and/or losing a parent are very serious and traumatising issues. Throughout the whole drama we saw Mubi's father constantly showing up for her. He saw the love and care he had for her. As someone who grew up without a father and with a healthcare worker for a mother, I honestly can't see how that child - and especially that adult - didn't see her father's love. He even included her in his passion. I'm not sure if that's a failure of the writing or the storytelling.
I don't see a neglected child, I see an entitled brat who even disrespects her craft. Choosing a craft you hate out of spite is something else. She couldn't even understand the movie her father made. They painted him as talentless and pathetic loser just because he wanted to make movies. Not everyone is good at what they love but that doesn't make anyone pathetic, it makes them passionate and we can't live life without passion. Well, we can, but it's not as fun.
We also see that Mubi finds ML resembles her father a lot, we see the parallels drawing between them. Even if she loved her father and didn't resent him, why would she choose a lover that reminded her of her parent? He didn't just reminded her of her father, he reminded her of everything she hated about her father.
We keep being told that Mubi is cold because she's too soft but we don't get to see any softness. We see children's book type of kindness to show us she's a good person and we see her foolishness when she doesn't demand an explanation for being abandoned, when that's supposedly her trauma. She simply gets over being ghosted for 5 years without an explanation and an assurance it won't happen again?
We see ML struggle alone after losing the only family he had, only to have help from his girlfriend and his friends when he's already struggling beyond what he should have. No one extended a hand out to him, no one checked on him. No one cared. Yes, people who grieve need time to sort out their feeling but they also need support and a lot of it, so they don't fall into the darkness. Those people who were portrayed as kind left him alone when he needed the most.
His career change also makes no sense. He loved movies, it wasn't just something he did with his brother. Working at a travel agency because he wants to know the world is the same as working at a restaurant because you like eating out. Only in specific positions you get to see the world, mostly you are stuck behind a computer while arranging the same tours over and over again for other people to see the world.
Well, the result of this drama was just too little for all the means they had.
The movie critic said people should be harsh so we can get better media and I do live by that as well. I believe we should be honest and critic about the media we consume, I'm not doing this just to be mean, there's no purpose on being mean. I'm just being honest, like I am in every review I make.
Everything feels flat, aloof and shallow. The characters, the story, the dialogues. You can't stand on sand castles, you need a firm ground.
Every character feels like a plot device for a superficial life lesson. I felt like this is a story told to teach basic concepts to children. "People have secrets", "You'll never get to know someone fully", "Parents showing up means they love you", "There's labour parents or caregivers do in the shadows", "People should be supported by friends and family in hard times", "Honesty is one of the pillars of a relationship", etc.
What irked me the most was the character's unidimensionality. They're just one thing. ML is a people-pleaser, FL is mean to hide the softness she says she has, SFL is subservient, SML is selfish and the brother is depressed. Because the brother is depressed and people who are depressed lose interest in life, he's shown to have no personality and that's a very extreme way of telling a story, it's something typically done in children stories to help them learn basic concepts.
Kim Jae Wook is an extraordinary actor and could even breathe life into an empty corpse. He's, honestly, the highlight in this drama. His character is shown as the miserable one whose life only brings him down. At one point, SML says that Jun lived his life the way he wanted to live. No, Jun didn't live his life the way he wanted. He didn't exist in the drama prior to their parents died, kid ML doesn't reference him in his life, he knows nothing about him, and he got stuck with raising a kid at 20 years old. He didn't have a choice. He lived for that kid and was mostly glad to do it. Since he didn't seem to exist prior to their parents death, he just became a flat character with a black and white existence. No dreams, no aspirations, no words, not thoughts, as if living a hard life to survive turns you into a literal zombie with no life or a personality. He was there to contrast with ML existence and bring it to life. It's sad, such a possibly rich story could be simply a plot device for a mediocre kid with fear of abandonment as his only trait.
Being neglected as a child and/or losing a parent are very serious and traumatising issues. Throughout the whole drama we saw Mubi's father constantly showing up for her. He saw the love and care he had for her. As someone who grew up without a father and with a healthcare worker for a mother, I honestly can't see how that child - and especially that adult - didn't see her father's love. He even included her in his passion. I'm not sure if that's a failure of the writing or the storytelling.
I don't see a neglected child, I see an entitled brat who even disrespects her craft. Choosing a craft you hate out of spite is something else. She couldn't even understand the movie her father made. They painted him as talentless and pathetic loser just because he wanted to make movies. Not everyone is good at what they love but that doesn't make anyone pathetic, it makes them passionate and we can't live life without passion. Well, we can, but it's not as fun.
We also see that Mubi finds ML resembles her father a lot, we see the parallels drawing between them. Even if she loved her father and didn't resent him, why would she choose a lover that reminded her of her parent? He didn't just reminded her of her father, he reminded her of everything she hated about her father.
We keep being told that Mubi is cold because she's too soft but we don't get to see any softness. We see children's book type of kindness to show us she's a good person and we see her foolishness when she doesn't demand an explanation for being abandoned, when that's supposedly her trauma. She simply gets over being ghosted for 5 years without an explanation and an assurance it won't happen again?
We see ML struggle alone after losing the only family he had, only to have help from his girlfriend and his friends when he's already struggling beyond what he should have. No one extended a hand out to him, no one checked on him. No one cared. Yes, people who grieve need time to sort out their feeling but they also need support and a lot of it, so they don't fall into the darkness. Those people who were portrayed as kind left him alone when he needed the most.
His career change also makes no sense. He loved movies, it wasn't just something he did with his brother. Working at a travel agency because he wants to know the world is the same as working at a restaurant because you like eating out. Only in specific positions you get to see the world, mostly you are stuck behind a computer while arranging the same tours over and over again for other people to see the world.
Well, the result of this drama was just too little for all the means they had.
The movie critic said people should be harsh so we can get better media and I do live by that as well. I believe we should be honest and critic about the media we consume, I'm not doing this just to be mean, there's no purpose on being mean. I'm just being honest, like I am in every review I make.
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