Review of Love Next Door /

엄마친구아들

Ever since coming back from South Korea, where I studied abroad on a full government scholarship for two months, I’ve been on such a Korean drama grind.

I was there to pretty much learn Korean and become somewhat adjusted to living in Korea, as my roommate and language partner assigned to me were both native Koreans, but when I came back to the United States, it was a bit of a jarring experience in some ways adjusting back to my reality.

Anyways, during this time I watched a lot of Korean dramas. Even before I went to Korea I watched a ton of dramas, but going there and coming back for a second time really sealed the deal in my interest. They’re sometimes not the best television, but they got the job done.

I was preparing to go to India right after this, so the only subscriptions I had at the time were Netflix and Viki. And that was how I ended up watching each episode of Love Next Door one by one, waiting for the next one to drop so I could continue the story.

At the time of writing this, I just finished the last episode and was so ready for the ending of this drama to be unveiled to me. I certainly have a lot of thoughts about this show!

Let’s get into the review and summary before I start rambling too much.

After returning from the United States, Seok-yru finds herself in a rhythm with her male childhood best friend.

In this series, we begin with some mothers bragging about their kids. That’s how we get to know Seok-ryu and Seung-hyo to begin with, who are the female and male leads respectively. Their mothers are friends, just like they were, and they want to brag about how successful their kids have become and effectively one up each other as much as possible.

Seok-ryu has been in the United States pursuing her career, but then she reappears back in Korea, seemingly quitting her job and coming back to the life she had worked so hard to leave behind.

As she wanders the streets with her suitcase, refusing to confront her mother and family, who think she isn’t there, she runs into Seung-hyo, who has now become a prominent, award-winning architect in his field.

There’s some awkwardness between the two throughout the first couple of episodes, especially as Seok-ryu adjusts back to her life in Korea. She doesn’t explain why she quit her job, but as the series goes on, we see more and more of the workplace harassment and discrimination she faced despite being at a prominent company.

While everyone was so proud of her back at home, she was really struggling. She was also engaged to a man back in the States, but as we see from the flashback scenes, as well as when he comes to Korea physically to try and salvage their relationship, there’s a lot of tension there too.

When Seung-hyo seems to obviously be pining for her, she seems pretty oblivious until the writing decides she likes him too all this time. I wasn’t convinced.

Somewhere down the line there’s also a major plot line involving her health, which can be good in some ways for the development of these characters, but I found the lead up to it to be very disappointing in the end.

I feel like this drama had so much potential, but it didn’t follow the right steps for making things happen. The actors also worked really well with the script, although I wasn’t convinced they had chemistry in quite a few episodes as romantic partners.

One of the big B plots in this drama involves Mo-eum, their other childhood friend. She’s a paramedic who becomes tangled up with a journalist, but she doesn’t really want to acknowledge her feelings for him at first.

As they keep running into each other, and she becomes acquainted with the family member he’s taken in (that Mo-eum assumes is his daughter at first), she starts to realize the extent of her feelings.

There’s also side plots involving Seung-hyo’s mother and father, especially when it comes to their marriage turmoils and health problems, Seok-ryu’s parents and their struggles, especially when it comes to her father’s restaurant or snack shop, and the fact her brother also has some problems here and there too. This could be a solid slice of life if they had done it perfectly, alas. More on that in the next section.

Overall Thoughts

As I mentioned before, I thought this drama had a lot of wasted potential. I wouldn’t be made at the health plot line if it wasn’t a poor lead up to it—I also think the episodes might’ve been a tad too long, which is what plagued dramas like Queen of Tears in the end. I can handle longer content easily, TikTok hasn’t destroyed my attention span that much, but I think it dragged the plot out too much.

Perhaps if this were twelve episodes and wrapped up a bit neater I would’ve liked this drama more. Towards the end it became even more predictable to me, and I was quickly losing the motivation to keep watching it. But I stuck it out because I felt like I had to know how these characters and their stories ended.

That said, I was really interested in Seok-ryu specifically as a character. She reminded me of someone I would watch a movie about. She went through a lot in her personal life, and I can relate to the aspect of wanting to pursue a cooking career.

I would’ve been chill if this were a more platonic drama even and were more about her rediscovering the meaning of life and its passions after health problems and a terrible job.

Taste is subjective though. You might’ve loved this drama, and that’s totally okay. Neither of us are wrong at the end of the day, and that’s because everyone likes different things. If you haven’t started this yet, form your own opinions and watch the drama, giving it a chance. You might find that you like it because it’s your taste.

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