When Love Next Door first hit Netflix, Choi Seung-hyo (Jung Hae-in) and Bae Seok-ryu (Jung So-min), the lead couple’s romance appeared to be a classic childhood-friends-turn-lovers story. However, as the K-drama progressed, the plot became something more than romance. It spoke volumes for finding a true support system in the fast-paced world that mostly works on meaningless connections.
With Seok-ryu facing a professional slump, Love Next Door attempts to be a warm embrace, a gentle reminder that it’s okay not to be okay when you are in the dumps. It tries to encourage viewers to have faith and recognize one’s true passion in a cutthroat environment that waits and cares for none. Unfortunately, there’s too much happening all at once in this fictional tale that the essence of the story and its meaning is lost.
The timing was way off
Love Next Door revolves around Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu who grew up together since childhood but closeness didn’t seem to bother them in the slightest until their unromantic friendship begins to blossom into something more. The makers spend most of their time getting the leads to confess and realize their feelings for each other. It’s a slow process with their exes creating additional drama but once it happens, the love story goes off the rails quickly.
There isn’t much space given to their romance to bloom beautifully or emphasis given to their secret dating arc, they go from confession to secret dating and proposal in quick succession that the timing feels way off. Just a little more touch of rose-tinted romance would have made the storyline likable.
The terminal illness arc was rubbish
During her time in the US, Seok-ryu was shown to be diagnosed with stage 2 cancer, wherein 70% of her stomach was removed during surgery. She underwent chemotherapy to treat the illness and soon fell into depression, all without informing her family and friends back in Korea.
Love Next Door tried to tie itself in all kinds of emotional knots to get us to care about the female lead but to be honest her deepest secret involving the cancer storyline felt unwanted and unnecessary. Even without the terminal illness trope their love story would have just worked out fine and wasn’t this supposed to be a rom-com?
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Love Next Door is a rip-off
There, I said it! Love Next Door is a rip-off of many K-dramas but we are not ready for this conversation yet. It is so evident that the drama’s theme about the professional slump was quite synonymous with Park Hyun-sik and Park Shin-ye’s Doctor Slump. But that’s not all. The K-drama consists of scenes that appears to be lifted off from Lovely Runner as is.
Remember how Ryu Sun-jae had to quit swimming after an injury? Likewise, Hae-in’s Seung-hyo also bids adieu to his swimming career right before reaching the Olympics due to a severe injury in a car accident. Moreover, Sun-jae and Im Sol bury a time capsule in Lovely Runner and so do our leads in Love Next Door. Fans have been quite vocal about the similarities but let me just say it outright, fresh content would have been better.
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Overwhelming storyline
Seok-ryu’s character development wasn’t just about facing a professional slump, her family equation highlighted the unrealistic expectations of Asian parents, which sometimes makes it harder for children to even breathe. Especially, when you fall short of meeting their expectations, it leads to frustration and distress, where even having a dream or taking a step towards one’s true passion feels like a mistake.
Meanwhile, Seung-hyo is subjected to abandonment issues in childhood and after growing mature has to watch his parents almost get a divorce. On top of it the exes drama and the terminal illness plot, it all feels too overwhelming. Love Next Door makes an attempt to be everything all at once that it fails to be what it had to be, a rom-com.
Also, after the tumultuous rollercoaster ride, the leads don’t even get a wedding scene. Why did it have to end like that?
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