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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "It's Okay, That's Love" Episode 12

Jae-yeol and Hae-soo still spend a disproportionate amount of energy discussing marriage- but note the change in context. This isn't an abstraction. They aren't talking about this on a radio show like this was some kind of expert discussion. These are personal conversations in a casual atmosphere that deal with their situation on an individual level. There's actual genuine rapport here that's surprisingly effective.

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It's a good demonstration of how "It's Okay, That's Love" is getting at least some of the genre fundamentals down correctly. I can easily pretend like these two have been in a relationship for longer than a few weeks and don't go off on pseudointellectual nonsense at the slightest provocation because there's an actual personal emotional intimacy in their conversations here that suggests a relationship of actual depth.

Note, though, that while I liked this, it does beg a lot of questions about the premise to date. If the psychoanalysis doesn't help the drama any, why does the script dedicate so much time to it? I get the impression that writer Noh Hee-kyeong just wanted to write about the relationship between these two personalities and all the mental stuff is a particular kind of flavoring in order to explain how they got together in the first place. Which again, makes sense from a screenwriting perspective. It doesn't solve the drama's other storyline problems, though.

We practically get a full reenactment of the long ago "murder" scene, courtesy of the fact that Dong-min apparently has the deductive abilities of a super detective, and the more I think about the situation the less sense it makes. Why would the police even assume this was a murder in the first place? Superficially it just looks like a horrible accident that only three people were able to escape from. I can't imagine the forensic evidence would be any more decisive on that point.

But then, there's more relevant questions to get to anyway. Like Jae-yeol's mental illness issues. Actually I'd rather not think too hard about that either. What about the Soo-gwang / So-nyeo loveline? Ugh, gross, I'd forgotten the drama was even pushing that angle and then this episode had to go and remind me. Why did she have to be a high school student? Would it have been so terrible to at least make her college age so the jailbait thing isn't even something we have to think about?

Review by William Schwartz

"It's Okay, That's Love" is directed by Kim Kyoo-tae, written by Noh Hee-kyeong and features Zo In-sung, Kong Hyo-jin, Sung Dong-il and Lee Kwang-soo.

 

 

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