Right from the start I'm thinking:
"Yo! Oh NO! Women and girls don't need to be watching this!"
This story follows the lives of art students, particularly Nabi's group of friends. Though the focus is on their love lives, the stresses of classes, projects, competitions, and future plans factor heavily in the story. The protagonist is Yu Nabi, a beautiful and talented but resigned, student.
The show starts with her painful break-up. She is then quickly seduced by the powerfully sexual Park Jae-eon (Song Kang from Sweet Home-8.5 & Navillera), who is a notorious womanizer. They couldn't be more different, except for the "road closure" signs on the way to their hearts. She starts a physical relationship with him but continually doubts him. He never asked for more anyway. This type of dude is not good in real life. Users like this tend to be on the sociopathic scale. Naive girls will think the can change him, that they'll succeed where other women have failed. It won't work, girls. You will get your heart shredded.
"It's making me so uncomfortable," was my thought, from EP 2 through midway when there was a plot shift. At the same time, I was also thinking that the director & actors handled the seduction scenes well. They are as steamy as the kitchen in a noodle restaurant. Nabi moves on to other guys. She has no shortage of admirers herself. These relationships may make her more at ease, but there are clearly no sparks, such as the ones Jae-eon ejects when he's performing his craft.
My method is: No reviews without watching the entire show, intolerable pain being the exception. If I had broken it off with Nevertheless in the early episodes, which I was not enjoying, I would've had a much different opinion than I now do after watching every frame. A solid 25% (it seems) of the early episodes consists of Nabi staring with an emptiness that showcases how a hammer shattered her fragile shell. Her emotional core is pulverized. She's struggling with school. Nothing is going right. She's shut down.
Nabi brightens up in the very last scene, when she settles on the next step in the direction of her future. She smiles radiantly, her voice lifts an octave or so, her words suddenly flow with ease: She's confident. There was so much transformation in that last smiling sentence that it was breathtaking.
The director, Kim Ga Ram (Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency -7.4), created her own piece of art in this series. This is Kim Ga-ram's third effort. All three are rated solidly with an increase in the IMDB rating for each one. We should be looking forward to more excellent offerings from Ms Kim. Screenwriter, Jung Won, is just getting started.
Not only was Nabi's transformation handled aptly, but there are many scenes that are excellent, with imagery and metaphors noticeable in the first watch. (Another go-through would only reveal more.) In Ep9, for example, Do-hyeuk gives Nabi an umbrella. He told her it will rain. He has an extra umbrella. Cut to Jae-eon who looks out at the deluge, umbrellaless. Do-hyeuk was prepared for heartache. He had braced himself. He was ready for rain. Heartache snuck up on Jae-eon. He never saw it coming. Several others in the extended group, who had been longstanding friends, also pair up. Their romances were all done well.
Adorned with a butterfly tattoo on the back of his neck, Jae-eon claims it means: The ugliness & pain of happiness & a lack of freedom. While Jae-eon has looks, money, talent, and popularity, which are all things that people believe will make them happy, he's not happy. He's lived free with many women, which left him not free to pursue a meaningful relationship. It's obvious that Jae-eon's dingy apartment -it's almost grayscale- is emblematic of his closed off heart. "Nabi" means butterfly. Nabi emerges from her chrysalis at the end of the show. That emergence had nothing to do with a man. The criticism of Nevertheless promoting toxic relationships is not fair. Nabi's confidence, in the end, was from, by, and through HER, not anyone else. This show is a cocoon that yields it's beauty right on time.
The sculpture on which Nabi labours for the entire semester appears lackluster, just as Nabi does. She takes a step toward joining society by finally taking on assistants. The reveal for finished works will be the end of semester art show. What's on display is Nabi herself. Nabi's piece has taken up wings to fly. The process and the show are the stages of a butterfly. The matured Nabi powers through her entrapments in full stained glass splendor. She might as well fuse with her sun-catcher and bracelet.
This is a well-crafted show. I would give it a rating of around 7.6, but it doesn't rise to the level of a solid 8. The director will likely be there with her next effort. Nevertheless, this series is well worth watching. It's not like the 3' deep cutesy romances. The director has crafted something more complex. In fact, I would classify this as a drama about self-awareness and self-liberation first, and a romance second.
QUOTE📢
Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne~
〰🖍 IMHO
🎬8 🤔6 🎭8 💓6 🦋8 ⚡1
Age 15+
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Modern Day:
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love to Hate You 8.9;
Oh My Ghost 10;
Our Blues 8.7 - ensemble piece;
It's Okay Not To Be Okay 9;
Love Struck in the City 7.3;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
I'll See You When the Weather is Fine 9;
Action/Sci-fi/fantasy:
Signal 8.6;
The Cursed 8.3;
Flower of Evil 8.9;
The Man from Nowhere 8.9;
Black 9;
Squid Game 8.4;
Romance junkies only:
My Secret Romance 7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks);
Boys Over Flowers 8 ~ melodrama to the max;
The Bride of Habaek 7;
Heirs 7.3;
That Winter, The Wind Blows7
Something in the Rain 9
🍂
