To quote the great poet Shel Silverstein, "Almost perfect . . . But not quite." This is a fine show, a very fine show. Centered around the lives of psychiatrists and patients, with some spectacular performances from the main actors and several good or better performances from the supporting cast, the show makes a passionate plea to its Korean audience to be more tolerant and accepting of people with mental illness. Its portrayal of Korean family values, at least as represented in KDramas, will befuddle Western viewers - you really have to accept that there is no limit to how selfish some parents can be at the expense of their children or to how willing the children are to submit to countless indignities at their parents' hands (and mouths). But that aside, there is so much admirable work on display here.
Let's start with our leads, the amazing Queen of Romantic Comedy, Gong Hyo-jin, and Jo In-sung. Their love affair is just wonderfully developed all the way through the 16 episodes, which for once never dragged. Starting out as a successful author who is mostly an arrogant prick, Jo gradually reveals his acute mental illness, schizophrenia induced by tragic events of his childhood which at least in this drama felt (mostly) believable. The effects include the hallucinatory creation of an alter ego who can suffer injuries and humiliations to expiate Jo's childhood misdeed (or perhaps we should say understandable misjudgment) that landed his older brother in prison for over a decade. What is unusual is that in this drama, when those around him realize what's going on and they force him into treatment, the treatment is shown realistically - something that takes months and is never quite done, with recovery taking skilled doctors, not very nice medications, and understanding from his world. While all this is going on, Jo becomes enamored of Gong, a psychiatrist whom he meets when she is a guest on his talk show. She herself has her own baggage, unable to have sex even with men she loves not because of the usual KDrama prudery but because of her inability to understand or forgive her mother's affair with a married man, which her mother engages in because of the overwhelming loneliness caused by her husband's mental illness. Gradually, Jo heals Gong (yes, they have sex, although nothing explicit is on screen) but in the process, his own affliction deepens to the point where it becomes understood that he is on a path of increasing self-harm that may lead to suicide. And then it becomes her turn to help him to heal, even through involuntary confinement.
The rest of the cast is very strong, some sensationally so. A couple of the characters are overwrought, particularly Gong's housemates, Sung Dong-il, so great as the central dad in Reply 1988, playing a psychiatrist at Gong's hospital, and Lee Kwang-Soo, a cafe waiter with Tourette's syndrome, who develops a crush on the adorable but unreliable Lee Sung-kyung. I would have wished those two roles had been toned down a bit. But many others are just right, including Jo's borderline psychopathic brother played unrelentingly by Yang Ik-Jun, and Sung's ex-wife, another psychiatrist, played sympathetically and realistically by Jin Kyung.
While the Korean legal and penal system don't come off too well here, at least the failures were (almost) believable. But what was truly believable and worth the watch was the portrayal of mental health professionals struggling with the extraordinary challenges posed by the mentally ill and their sometimes understanding and sometimes less than understanding families.
What might have been better? The direction was a little self-indulgent, particularly in allowing Sung too much latitude in his temperamental outbursts. And I really can't bear the way the victims of domestic violence so often in KDramas become the victims of the judicial system, however helpful to the plot. The world I thought had moved on, if only a little, from the notion that the killing of a vile domestic abuser in the middle of a disgusting assault is no different from any other murder.
All in all, however, a story you wanted to follow in a setting that was always compelling. I am sorry I came to this so late and glad to tip my hat now to Noh Hee-kyung, the writer, and a fine cast and crew.
Let's start with our leads, the amazing Queen of Romantic Comedy, Gong Hyo-jin, and Jo In-sung. Their love affair is just wonderfully developed all the way through the 16 episodes, which for once never dragged. Starting out as a successful author who is mostly an arrogant prick, Jo gradually reveals his acute mental illness, schizophrenia induced by tragic events of his childhood which at least in this drama felt (mostly) believable. The effects include the hallucinatory creation of an alter ego who can suffer injuries and humiliations to expiate Jo's childhood misdeed (or perhaps we should say understandable misjudgment) that landed his older brother in prison for over a decade. What is unusual is that in this drama, when those around him realize what's going on and they force him into treatment, the treatment is shown realistically - something that takes months and is never quite done, with recovery taking skilled doctors, not very nice medications, and understanding from his world. While all this is going on, Jo becomes enamored of Gong, a psychiatrist whom he meets when she is a guest on his talk show. She herself has her own baggage, unable to have sex even with men she loves not because of the usual KDrama prudery but because of her inability to understand or forgive her mother's affair with a married man, which her mother engages in because of the overwhelming loneliness caused by her husband's mental illness. Gradually, Jo heals Gong (yes, they have sex, although nothing explicit is on screen) but in the process, his own affliction deepens to the point where it becomes understood that he is on a path of increasing self-harm that may lead to suicide. And then it becomes her turn to help him to heal, even through involuntary confinement.
The rest of the cast is very strong, some sensationally so. A couple of the characters are overwrought, particularly Gong's housemates, Sung Dong-il, so great as the central dad in Reply 1988, playing a psychiatrist at Gong's hospital, and Lee Kwang-Soo, a cafe waiter with Tourette's syndrome, who develops a crush on the adorable but unreliable Lee Sung-kyung. I would have wished those two roles had been toned down a bit. But many others are just right, including Jo's borderline psychopathic brother played unrelentingly by Yang Ik-Jun, and Sung's ex-wife, another psychiatrist, played sympathetically and realistically by Jin Kyung.
While the Korean legal and penal system don't come off too well here, at least the failures were (almost) believable. But what was truly believable and worth the watch was the portrayal of mental health professionals struggling with the extraordinary challenges posed by the mentally ill and their sometimes understanding and sometimes less than understanding families.
What might have been better? The direction was a little self-indulgent, particularly in allowing Sung too much latitude in his temperamental outbursts. And I really can't bear the way the victims of domestic violence so often in KDramas become the victims of the judicial system, however helpful to the plot. The world I thought had moved on, if only a little, from the notion that the killing of a vile domestic abuser in the middle of a disgusting assault is no different from any other murder.
All in all, however, a story you wanted to follow in a setting that was always compelling. I am sorry I came to this so late and glad to tip my hat now to Noh Hee-kyung, the writer, and a fine cast and crew.