Drama Reviews: Be Melodramatic (2019)

 

Be Melodramatic is about 3 female friends who have turned 30 and are dealing with their various life struggles - the main female lead an aspiring writer, another dealing with the loss of a loved one, and the last dealing with being a single mother. It's slice of life but so unique and creative.


So I picked this show up because Chun Woo Hee is a queen. She was the only recognisable name to me in the entire cast and I had no idea what to expect, but I am so glad I picked it up. The show was more popular than what its ratings suggest, with many people calling it their life drama, and the OST even topped melon charts.

This year the shows I've watched are - SKY Castle (4 female leads), Search WWW (3 female leads), Be Melodramatic (3 female leads) and Killing Eve (2 female leads - grats Jodie Comer for the well deserved Emmy!). Female-centric shows are thriving and I love it.

Our main female lead Im Jin Joo is crazy and weird, but also very relatable. Wanting to reject today by sleeping till tomorrow, wanting to do nothing, laying on the sofa at home - isn't that practically everyone haha. Luckily, she found her match in the equally weird director of her drama, Son Bum Soo (Ahn Jae Hong) and they were such an adorable and well matched couple. I liked that the show never went too far with the love triangle between the main couple and her ex-boyfriend (Lee Yoo Jin). I also really really liked that this ex-boyfriend was not a terrible abusive jerk - he was a pretty decent guy and competent at work and also respected her when she rejected him for the final time at the fancy dinner place.

Jeon Yeo Bin surprised me as I've never seen her in anything else before but she was so natural as the cynical, deadpan, but hurting Eun Jung. I loved how the show demonstrated her road to healing, the fact that she went to a psychiatrist who was actually professional and legit, and her reluctant blossoming friendship (or more) with Yelling Director (the very charming Son Seok Ku). Her arc was probably the most satisfying and I looked forward to her scenes. The scene where she realised she was talking to a hallucination was chilling, and the scene where she looked at her dead fiance's online diary tore my heart to pieces. I hope Jeon Yeo Bin gets lots more offers in the future cos she's amazing. And she has the most beautiful smile.

Our third female lead is Han Joo, a single working mother with a kid. I really liked that she was shown to be competent, and just thinking of that OPPAAA scene makes me break into laughter.
I surprisingly loved the plot line of JaeHoon breaking up with his toxic girlfriend. I found it so realistic that it was difficult for them to break up because people are often reluctant to change status quo. While I was totally expecting Han Joo and Jae Hoon to end up together, I was surprisingly ok with them just being friends.

The strongest part of the show was definitely the writing. Somehow, there were so many scenes that were absolutely absurd yet were hilarious and worked because the writing was so self aware and knew how to poke fun at itself (the guitar scene, the many PPL scenes). And yet amidst all the absurdity, there were so many comforting words that were life lessons for the viewers.

Another standout was the music and songs. Getting Jang Bum Jun to sing the OST is practically cheating, but that shampoo song is amazing - every version of it. My other favourite is the song they sang at the end of Ep 2 called Slow Pace.

While I would love a season 2 of the show, I would also be ok with not having it as I feel like somewhere out there, these characters are continuing to live their lives and surviving the struggles and hardships while also having their happy moments.