True to Love (2023)
True to Love is a Korean series about a young dating coach named Bora aka Deborah who has a radio show where she gives advice to others about relationships. She easily and confidently advises everyone to break up if the relationship is boring, miserable, or if there's cheating.
She is also working on a new writing project about relationships, which publisher Lee Su-hyeok rejects as ridiculous garbage and sees her as a nosy, fraudulent meddler who should mind her own love life rather than pretend to be some kind of expert on everyone's lives and avoid suggesting "strategies" and games in the pursuit of a relationship.
Both of their worlds crash down as each one of them is dumped by their long-time partner, his girlfriend having been influenced by Bora's radio show to dump him, giving him another reason to resent her.
The acting in this I find to be phenomenal and very, very believable. It feels real.
Bora has these beautiful, typical fantasies, but her reality is like many realities, disappointing and shy of the dream.
The chemistry between the characters feels so life like and they are portrayed as human rather than glamorized super humans who do no wrong. They are flawed and damaged and make mistakes.
My test for whether a film falls in the green checkmark pile or the red x pile is simply, would I watch it again? And in this case, yes, I've already started an immediate rewatch and am noticing many things I missed the first time. It's in Korean with subtitles and cultural differences so it's easy to miss small details the first time, but satisfying on second watch to be like "Ohhhh, now I get why she did that!"
I didn't find this dramatic and comedic series to be a cliche, but rather an incredible emotional journey that had me both laughing and crying as I followed the stories of the various characters, including Bora and Su-hyeok.
I would describe True to Love series as one of the best things I've watched in a long time. Recommend.
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