Our Movie: Episodes 1-2

by Dramaddictally

The new SBS romance Our Movie has arrived with intent to make us sob, swoon, heal, and ponder what we would do in our life’s last moments. With measured pacing and visuals fit for the big screen, I’m already sold on this story about a movie director and the actress he discovers to play her first and final role.

 
EPISODES 1-2

“Just when we think the end is near, that’s when life begins,” says the voiceover as we make our way into this tale. And so the theme is set as we’re introduced to our male lead, LEE JE-HA (Namgoong Min), who wrote and directed a hit movie five years ago — and has been “working on his next script” (a.k.a., hiding out and not producing much) ever since.

While we hear about his “sophomore slump,” we learn that it’s not as simple as it sounds. This screenwriter isn’t just suffering from the pressure of needing to one-up himself on the next round — he also lost his father and had a breakup at the same time his movie premiered. He’s racked up a lot of losses and, as we go along, we’ll find out that he also lost his mother at an earlier age, making the title of his debut movie, The Lonely People, feel very fitting.

We learn that Je-ha’s father was a famous movie director too — which brings out all the haters who claim Je-ha’s movie only did well due to his connections. Je-ha seems to believe this himself, and when he’s confronted by a crude director about his lack of talent, Je-ha says the comments are brutal precisely because they’re true.

Still, Je-ha cut ties with his father long ago — and this is where the plot gets seeded for our story. We learn that his father’s most famous film, Love in White, is at the heart of Je-ha’s hatred. A year after Je-ha’s mother died, the film was released, starring the woman his father was rumored to be having an affair with. Je-ha still harbors all the anger of his father moving on to live out a love story with this new woman, both on screen and off.

That is, until he has a run-in with the film’s now-aging star and she tells him he should take a look at the original script. He clearly doesn’t understand what the writer was feeling, she says. Je-ha rejects the idea, saying that the viewers’ feelings matter too, but ultimately finds himself rummaging through his father’s belongings to locate the hand-written script. It bears a name that is not his father’s and, in that moment, Je-ha starts to change his tune about the movie. As it turns out, it was written by his mother.

It’s an autobiographical account of her feelings of love, while also contending with her own impending death, which is what made the story a classic. Now, there’s a producer who wants to remake the movie, and Je-ha is up for the job. While he initially wouldn’t go near the project, this revelation changes his mind, and the next thing we know, he’s looking for a leading lady to play the terminally ill main character.

Enter our drama’s leading lady, LEE DA-EUM (Jeon Yeo-bin). We get to know her in pieces, as she rides around on her bike and appears to live a happy-go-lucky life — except she’s visiting a doctor regularly and setting alarms to remind herself to eat. She’s also continually holding a camcorder to film her day-to-day encounters, which is how she winds up meeting our male lead. Sitting outside a convenience store at night, she looks through her lens as he approaches, blurry at first, before becoming clear in her frame.

Da-eum comes off like a bit of a weirdo, offering him a juice and then making him feel guilty for taking it, but she also maintains her chipper attitude, which highlights the clash in how these two are characterized. Je-ha has a dark cloud around him, which, to me, reads as total resignation, but is interpreted as coldness, distance, and outright jerky behavior by most people. Da-eum on the other hand is light, jokey, and always smiling. She’s happy to run into to him (she knows who he is), and doesn’t seem to register his mood.

While this first encounter is a short one, our leads stumble on each other twice more before they enter each other’s lives in earnest. In the interim, we learn that Da-eum is an actress, but on the set of her first major role, she collapsed and was then diagnosed with the inherited terminal illness that killed her mother. Her father, a doctor, has her living in hospice in order to receive care, but Da-eum feels like she’s there waiting to die. She’s only 25 and has been living a contained life since she collapsed at 20. And all she wants to do is live out the rest of her days as she chooses.

As she comes to terms with her imminent death, she walks around the city recording all the pretty things she finds, in case she never gets to go out and see them again. But beyond that, she really wants to leave something of herself behind for the people she loves, especially her dad. And this is how she ends up auditioning for Je-ha’s movie.

When our pair meet for the third time, Da-eum is supposed to be a consultant for Je-ha’s script rewrite. He thinks he’s going to meet with a doctor to discuss terminally ill patients, only to learn he’s there to talk with someone who’s actually dying. At the meeting, Da-eum learns that he’s remaking Love in White, which is one of her favorite movies, and she gets the idea to show up unannounced for the casting call.

Je-ha isn’t happy that she’s there, and he doesn’t want to cast a person who could die during filming — even though everyone was blown away by her acting. For her part, Da-eum has about a year to live, but she wants to play this part even if it prompts a sooner death. The role was made for her; she can play this character because she is this character, she says.

And the evidence lies in the fact that Je-ha is rewriting the script using exact lines that come out of her mouth. He’s already stated that he wants to update the 1990’s script with a female character that has more ambition and will than the original, and he’s seeing that spark in Da-eum.

At their next few run-ins, Je-ha continues to say she’s not getting the part. But then, she receives a text that says she’s made it past the first round. Her father doesn’t support her acting, not in the condition she’s in, and so, she leaves the hospice on her own accord and seeks out the support of a close friend, who cries happy tears along with her as she receives the news.

Her next meeting with Je-ha is an interview, where she makes her case again. Je-ha acts distant as usual, but as Da-eum is leaving the room, he approaches, stands too close, looks in her eyes, and says he has one condition: “Don’t die.” And so, it looks she got the part.

Not a bad premiere week at all and I’m looking forward to see how this develops. I’m hooked by the setup, the conflicts that both leads feel with their parents, and Je-ha’s sense of defeat, which has him acting almost numb at times. The opening line, about life beginning when the end is near, feels like it applies to both characters, even though only Da-eum is close to actual death. Je-ha says that he feels like he’s been rotting away for the past five years, and this new encounter, along with the project to revive and remake the past in some sense, is exactly what he needs to bring him back to life as well.

One thing I’m not loving is the age difference and possibility of a power imbalance. Je-ha is older than Da-eum, experienced as a director, and known in his industry. Da-eum is an unknown actress, who’s not only young and inexperienced, she’s also portrayed with qualities that make her seem even younger. We know she’s never dated before, while Je-ha has a backstory with another leading actress (the star of his first film), who he broke up with in a pretty callous way when their dating scandal broke. All of this had me a little uncomfortable when Je-ha went from cold to close in a matter of seconds at the end of Episode 2. I’m not opposed to it, but let’s keep the otherwise-excellent pacing intact here, Drama.

That being said, Namgoong Min is stunning all the way through (visually and acting-wise). So, add that to the emotional way Je-ha’s character and conflict have been built up and it’s impossible not to like this guy. I have faith that these two are going to meet in the middle, evening out both of their current personalities. And when that happens, it’s going to be beautiful.

 
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