Exit Review: Be Melodramatic

Synopsis

This is the ensemble workplace comedy about a group of friends in the entertainment industry who all move in together after one of them suffers a personal tragedy and becomes severely depressed.

Im Jin Joo is an aspiring drama writer with zero filter, trying to get her first project onto the screen after years of struggling as an assistant writer. She becomes involved with an equally idiosyncratic, successful television director looking for his next hit.

Lee Eun Jung is a documentarian who became an overnight success with her first documentary. However, after the tragic death of her boyfriend, she gives away all her money and enters a two year depression. In order to cope she begins to hallucinate her late boyfriend while she embarks on a new documentary project.

Hwang Han Joo handles marketing for a production company, a job which requires a great deal of running around begging actors and directors to honor their product placement agreements, She is also a single mother with a shitty ex who became a popular television personality after they broke up. She forms a friendship with a new member of her team, a soft hearted young man who is entangled in a toxic relationship.

Review

Story: As is often the case with ensemble comedies, this isn’t a terribly plotty drama. However, where it excels is in scenecraft and dialogue. This is one of those wonderful dramas that you regret having to experience though subtitles, because you know you’re missing out on some wonderfully witty jokes by virtue of not being a native Korean speaker. But that’s not to say this drama is just nonstop gags (although it is very, very funny).  It’s equally capable of giving us really poignant character moments, some of which brought tears to my eyes. This drama has a unique point of view and interesting things to say about women’s lives, relationships, about love and about grief.

There were one or two minor story missteps, in my opinion. And one pretty major one (and yes, if you’ve seen it I am talking about the resolution–or lack there of–of that relationship, yikes). But none of it was enough to take away from my overall enjoyment, and for the most part I was satisfied with how everyone ended up.

Acting: I don’t have a ton to say about the acting except that this group of people is wildly talented and they play off of each other so well. The comedic timing alone is fantastic. I cackled while watching this drama. I would never have pegged Chun Woo Hee and Ahn Jae Hong as making such a cute and effective screen couple, but they are a wonderfully well matched pair of weirdos.

My favorite performance of the drama goes to Jeon Yeo Bin, who has only had a couple minor drama roles before this, but absolutely owns the role of the deadpan, sarcastic documentarian carrying around a deep emotional wound. She carries off most of the emotional heavy lifting in the drama and makes it look effortless. I am dying to see what she does next. She is lead role material and I will absolutely check out her next project, even if it’s only half as good as this one. (Maybe something with Son Seok Koo? Pretty pretty please?)

Production: The production of this drama is exactly what it needs to be. It’s bouncy and light with a lot of little visual gags. I especially liked when the drama got more and more meta toward the end of the run (as you would expect it to do, given it’s a drama about making a drama). The way they incorporated PPL with a nudge and a wink was both some of the most shameless and most tasteful PPL I’ve seen in a drama.

Feels: It took me a couple weeks to get on the Be Melodramatic train. It wasn’t on my radar as something I needed to see, and if my roommate hadn’t started watching and telling me about how good it was I probably would have continued to sleep on this one. I knew it was something special because my roommate, who typically will not watch slice-of-life dramas, was in love with it and had me laughing with her just recounting things that happened in the drama. When I did start watching it I finished 6 episodes in a day and I knew that I had found one if 2019’s best.

Honestly, aside from one character arc misstep, which I mentioned above and could go into but it  would count as spoilers, I have basically no complaints about this drama. It just made me feel good to watch it, it was also hugely relatable to me as a writer and as a working adult. I never wanted it to end.

Would I recommend Be Melodramatic? Absolutely, yes. Go watch this drama. Watch it now.

8.5/10