An Unraveling of Identity and Obsession on Stage and Off
What drew me into Method wasn’t the promise of a romantic slow burn. It was the casting. The film centers around Yongwoo, a member of a popular boy group, and Jaeha, a seasoned stage veteran with decades of gravitas under his belt. It’s a curious pairing at first glance. Youth and idol fame clashing with age and theatrical prestige. That tension alone was reason enough to watch. What I didn’t expect was to be pulled into a psychological drama that defies genre expectations and left me questioning where the character ended and the performance began.
One of the most immediate things that sets Method apart is its chemistry. It didn’t feel rushed, superficial, or shoehorned in for fanservice. It crafts an almost unsettling tension. Every glance, every line read in rehearsal feels loaded. At times tender, at others unnerving. The chemistry between Yongwoo and Jaeha is electric, but not in a romanticized way. It’s raw, uncomfortable, and, most crucially, earned.
The dynamic between the two characters is built on an intentional imbalance. Jaeha doesn’t take Yongwoo seriously.. and why should he? Yongwoo enters the world of theater as a detached idol with no passion for the play they're rehearsing. Jaeha is a man who has bled for his craft, and he sees Yongwoo as little more than a shallow pretty face. That perception begins to shift as Yongwoo becomes entranced. Not just by Jaeha as a person, but by Jaeha’s unwavering devotion to acting. The first screenplay read-through scene is burned into my memory.
It’s reductive to call Method just a BL. If anything, it weaponizes the genre’s conventions to lure viewers in, only to dismantle them scene by scene. This isn’t a love story. It’s a tragic character study about obsession, artistic dissolution, and the dangers of identity blurring between role and reality.
Jaeha doesn’t fall in love, he falls into his character. Walter consumes him. He withers under the weight of his own method acting, and in doing so, drags Yongwoo down with him. But Yongwoo’s downfall is more chaotic. He doesn’t become someone else; he loses himself in Jaeha. His affection metastasizes into fixation. It culminates in a harrowing moment where he breaks into Jaeha’s home and stands silently over him and his wife as they sleep. There's no romantic justification, no tragic poetry.. just a haunting display of emotional possession.
There’s no love here, only consumption. The kind that gnaws away at your sense of self until all that’s left is the performance.
What makes Method remarkable is its refusal to play to expectations. It’s not romantic, but it is intimate. It’s not erotic, but it simmers with tension. And above all, it’s an exploration of what happens when the line between who we are and who we pretend to be collapses entirely.
One of the most immediate things that sets Method apart is its chemistry. It didn’t feel rushed, superficial, or shoehorned in for fanservice. It crafts an almost unsettling tension. Every glance, every line read in rehearsal feels loaded. At times tender, at others unnerving. The chemistry between Yongwoo and Jaeha is electric, but not in a romanticized way. It’s raw, uncomfortable, and, most crucially, earned.
The dynamic between the two characters is built on an intentional imbalance. Jaeha doesn’t take Yongwoo seriously.. and why should he? Yongwoo enters the world of theater as a detached idol with no passion for the play they're rehearsing. Jaeha is a man who has bled for his craft, and he sees Yongwoo as little more than a shallow pretty face. That perception begins to shift as Yongwoo becomes entranced. Not just by Jaeha as a person, but by Jaeha’s unwavering devotion to acting. The first screenplay read-through scene is burned into my memory.
It’s reductive to call Method just a BL. If anything, it weaponizes the genre’s conventions to lure viewers in, only to dismantle them scene by scene. This isn’t a love story. It’s a tragic character study about obsession, artistic dissolution, and the dangers of identity blurring between role and reality.
Jaeha doesn’t fall in love, he falls into his character. Walter consumes him. He withers under the weight of his own method acting, and in doing so, drags Yongwoo down with him. But Yongwoo’s downfall is more chaotic. He doesn’t become someone else; he loses himself in Jaeha. His affection metastasizes into fixation. It culminates in a harrowing moment where he breaks into Jaeha’s home and stands silently over him and his wife as they sleep. There's no romantic justification, no tragic poetry.. just a haunting display of emotional possession.
There’s no love here, only consumption. The kind that gnaws away at your sense of self until all that’s left is the performance.
What makes Method remarkable is its refusal to play to expectations. It’s not romantic, but it is intimate. It’s not erotic, but it simmers with tension. And above all, it’s an exploration of what happens when the line between who we are and who we pretend to be collapses entirely.
Was this review helpful to you?
