Celebrity 
2
Everyone seemed to be acting in their own separate drama and then meeting in the edit.
Ah, guys. I don't know what happened between me and Eve. I really don't. This was supposed to work. The ingredients are all there: OTT melodrama, cheating, brawling, chaebol families, revenge, betrayal , honestly, it has everything it needs to be a good drama.
And I'm not surprised the story works. I hear a production company in England has picked up Eve for a remake, which shows the bones are good. The problem is that somewhere between the bones and the finished product, somebody lost the plot.
I don't know if it was casting, directing, editing, pacing — probably a little bit of everything — but something was fundamentally misaligned. The exposition is fine, the story itself is intriguing, but the pacing is just off. And then there is the chemistry. Or, more accurately, the complete absence of it.
Have you heard of this instance where an actor isn't available on the day of filming, so one person performs their side of the scene and the other comes in later, and then the editors stitch it together so it looks like they're in the same room? I genuinely felt like Eve was doing that half the time. Everyone seemed to be acting in their own separate drama and then meeting in the edit.
Song Ye-ji's character, Eve, was fundamentally misaligned with almost every man in her orbit. Her husband? No chemistry. The man she's having an affair with? No chemistry. Her childhood saviour? Still no chemistry. And these are supposed to be the emotional anchors of the entire story! There was nothing pulling me into any of these relationships.
And don't even get me started on Sora. As a standalone chaebol villain, she actually works. She's cartoonish, yes, but at least she commits to the assignment. She emotes, she goes for it, and honestly, she sometimes seemed to be the only person who had received the memo about what drama she was starring in. Her father, played by a veteran actor, is perfectly fine, but even he is fighting a very thin script.
That's really the problem with Eve. It is so heavily stylised that the styling starts doing the emotional work the drama itself isn't doing. It is gorgeous to look at, absolutely. But at some point, beautiful clothes, beautiful sets and beautiful lighting cannot substitute for pathos.
I needed movement. I needed fluidity. I needed to feel why these people wanted each other, hated each other, loved each other, betrayed each other. Instead, everything felt strangely airless and disjointed.
And I really tried. I picked it up, dropped it, picked it up again, dropped it again. By the eighth episode, it was taking me three to five days to finish one episode. At that point, the relationship between me and Eve was more complicated than any relationship actually happening in the drama.
Honestly, I think Eve needs the remake.
I'm actually looking forward to the British version because I think there is a genuinely good story buried in here. Give it better casting alignment, better chemistry, more emotional grounding and a little less obsession with looking expensive, and you might actually have something.
And I'm not surprised the story works. I hear a production company in England has picked up Eve for a remake, which shows the bones are good. The problem is that somewhere between the bones and the finished product, somebody lost the plot.
I don't know if it was casting, directing, editing, pacing — probably a little bit of everything — but something was fundamentally misaligned. The exposition is fine, the story itself is intriguing, but the pacing is just off. And then there is the chemistry. Or, more accurately, the complete absence of it.
Have you heard of this instance where an actor isn't available on the day of filming, so one person performs their side of the scene and the other comes in later, and then the editors stitch it together so it looks like they're in the same room? I genuinely felt like Eve was doing that half the time. Everyone seemed to be acting in their own separate drama and then meeting in the edit.
Song Ye-ji's character, Eve, was fundamentally misaligned with almost every man in her orbit. Her husband? No chemistry. The man she's having an affair with? No chemistry. Her childhood saviour? Still no chemistry. And these are supposed to be the emotional anchors of the entire story! There was nothing pulling me into any of these relationships.
And don't even get me started on Sora. As a standalone chaebol villain, she actually works. She's cartoonish, yes, but at least she commits to the assignment. She emotes, she goes for it, and honestly, she sometimes seemed to be the only person who had received the memo about what drama she was starring in. Her father, played by a veteran actor, is perfectly fine, but even he is fighting a very thin script.
That's really the problem with Eve. It is so heavily stylised that the styling starts doing the emotional work the drama itself isn't doing. It is gorgeous to look at, absolutely. But at some point, beautiful clothes, beautiful sets and beautiful lighting cannot substitute for pathos.
I needed movement. I needed fluidity. I needed to feel why these people wanted each other, hated each other, loved each other, betrayed each other. Instead, everything felt strangely airless and disjointed.
And I really tried. I picked it up, dropped it, picked it up again, dropped it again. By the eighth episode, it was taking me three to five days to finish one episode. At that point, the relationship between me and Eve was more complicated than any relationship actually happening in the drama.
Honestly, I think Eve needs the remake.
I'm actually looking forward to the British version because I think there is a genuinely good story buried in here. Give it better casting alignment, better chemistry, more emotional grounding and a little less obsession with looking expensive, and you might actually have something.
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