'Love Next Door' Fails to Live Up to the K-drama Hype — So Far
'Love Next Door' Fails to Live Up to the K-drama Hype — So Far
Forced chemistry, choppy editing and directing, missed opportunities and misused character actors, and cringey dialogue are just some of the problems of this new Netflix bomb
“I was so excited to have another sweet, feel-good romance k-drama to watch. but I just can't like Jung So-min's acting. it looks very flat and blah. I don't remember her moving the lower half of her face even once. no facial expression, no emotion through her act. it feels so forced. I'm very disappointed in her acting. Choi Seung-hyo however has a much better performance. but still, the chemistry is just NOT there. the story lacks excitement too. I would hardly give this a 4/10.” — melika naderi navaz, Google review, a week ago
*Update: I just found out that “Love Next Door” isn’t finished. More episodes are coming out through early October, so a lot of my critiques are premature, including the ones surrounding Seung-hyo’s parents. Let’s see if they can wrap up all the loose ends and make me eat my words.
On paper, “Love Next Door (My Mom’s Friend’s Son)” had all the makings for a perfect rom-com k-drama: two popular, attractive young leads — Jung So-min (Bae Seok-ryu) and Jung Hae-in (Choi Seung-hyo) — and their madcap sidekicks, critically acclaimed character actors, an exciting premise — childhood opposites grow up and fall in love against their better judgment — and the backing of Netflix.
I wish it lived up to the hype. It just fell flat with me.
I kept changing the channel, trying other k-dramas (“Officer Black Belt’s” way better by a mile), stalling for time, before going back with a heavy sigh, waiting — often in vain — for the pace to pick up and something momentous to turn everything around.
Clearly, Seok-ryu was keeping a big secret when she returned to Korea, after quitting a big, important, prestigious U.S. job as a project manager for Greip. Unfortunately, we don’t get to know what it is until almost the end of the show much later, maybe by the second to the last episode (watched so far).
*We also don’t get resolution on her or anyone else’s stories — main or side — as the show meanders from one unfinished train of thought to another without any clearcut direction.
We’re supposed to follow Seung-hyo’s architectural career, as well, but the writer/director drops the character’s major projects before they even get going. (What happened to the memorial renovation he suggested early in the show?) The projects serve as loose plot points, excuses, to see Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu interact, i.e., avoid their feelings through an annoying tug of war of words, where it just looks like they’re filling time with insults and put-downs from the 1960s.
Who wrote this shit? It’s bad. Cringey, in fact.
Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu are soooo good at selling their tiresome distaste for one another that I totally believe them and buy into their game. So when love inexplicably enters the picture late in the game, as an afterthought, I’m aghast at having read them wrong.
“Complete and utter trash. Male lead is a rude asshole to the female lead because he - wait for it - secretly likes her. Classic example of lazy korean writing. Parents and 2nd leads who no one cares about dominates with screen time and the actual reason people are giving the drama a chance, the male and female leads, get three interactions per episode if we are lucky and in all three, the Male lead is being a grouchy asshole and female lead is a child with no self respect or knowledgeof boundaries. Such potential. Complete waste” — Sonia Pratt, two weeks ago, Google review
The actors, notably Yun Ji On (reporter Kang Dan Ho) — who appeared on a better note in “Tomorrow” — often seem at a loss with what to do with themselves after spitting out awkward, unconvincing dialogue, as the camera lingers a little too uncomfortably long on their reaction — or lack thereof.
In one scene, he’s supposedly gazing lovingly at his daughter on the hospital bed, but we only see him ending the scene prematurely and looking lost.
By the time the Seok-ryu’s big secret comes out, you’re left in shock and dismay that this couldn’t have leaked out a little earlier with more back story. It might’ve saved the show.
How about we cut out all that going-nowhere Lavender time with the mom friends and the husbands’ lackluster drinkfest, as well as half the paramedic, little girl looking for crop circles (WTF) bullshit?
Meh, Barbie and Ken have more chemistry.
What the fuck is going on with Seung-hyo’s ambassador-whore of a mother Seo Hye-suk?! Jang Young Nam was so good at being scary in the hit k-drama, “It’s Okay to Not Be Okay.”
It’s a crime how much she’s wasted in this rom-com that is neither rom nor com.
In scenes where her character’s reaction would lend much-needed poignant buoyancy, the director simply cuts her out of the picture entirely. She never gets a say in her own half-assed story as a hoity, restless ambassador and absentee mom.
That’s the story, homes.
She could’ve redeemed herself with her grown son, her neglected surgeon husband, and her hometown friends once Seok-ryu’s secret came out. For god’s sakes, have Hye-suk realize what she’s missed out on, how life is precious, turn her life around, and be there for those she claims to love…and just stay.
Hye-suk wasn’t even allowed to hug anyone, much less her best friend — who’s in the original title of the goddamned k-drama! — in their time of need…and when it counted.
She just floats around on the outskirts like a ghost, a nagging loose thread that never gets pulled or sewed back in.
K-dramas are notorious for second lead syndrome, where the audience finds itself noticing and rooting more for the jilted best friend than the main guy in a love triangle. Well, how about supporting family syndrome?
The best actors in this terrible k-drama happen to be Seok-ryu’s long-suffering, blue-collar parents scraping to get by. Park Ji Young (Na Mi-suk) and one my favorite character actors (“Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha,” “Tomorrow, with You”) — Jo Han Chul (Bae Geun-sik) — deserve their own limited series. I’d watch them open cereal boxes.
When Mi-suk finds out what her daughter’s been enduring alone all these years, her portrayer turns in a tour-de-force, Oscar-winning performance out of crumbs, turning this joke of a k-drama into fine art — and the reason the world tunes in. Same with Geun-sik’s painful-to-watch insecurity cracking apart and adding gravity to an otherwise cartoonish situation.
It’s like watching Mary Magdalene reaching for the hem of Jesus Christ’s robe in the 1999 U.S. mini-series, featuring LeAnn Rimes’ hit song, “I Need You.”
I could go on, but it’d be as pointless as this caricature of a k-drama.
In summary…
There’s little to no chemistry between the romantic leads. No real acting or effort, proof that outstanding performers are lost without outstanding writing (and directing). Choppy, weird directing and editing choices. No satisfying ending, no fucking ending at all. No heart and soul to the characters or the neighborhood they live in and supposedly claim is full of heart and soul. No meaty, realistic, or even remotely funny dialogue, except accidental moments (when the reporter is caught staring at the paramedic on his computer). No offense, but Netflix needs to put up English subtitles for the Koreans trying to speak English.
Nothing but a parody of a self-indulgent k-drama.
Do better, Korea. Stop copying Hollywood.
I’m hoping new seasons of “Gyeongseong Creature,” “Squid Games 2,” and “Hellbound” will wash the nasty taste of banana milk out of my mouth…