Melo Movie Review: When Brotherhood Shines More than Romance

To some, a soft, sweet, and moving exploration of loneliness and grief. To others, a lacklustre attempt at a romantic drama. Despite the hype, Netflix’s Melo Movie has faced a mixed, lukewarm reception that left it out of Netflix’s Global Top 10 (unlike its Netflix original predecessors).

So why does the show work? And why doesn’t it?

Melo Movie is Netflix’s latest K-drama original, which came out on February 14th. The show was written by Lee Na-eun of Our Beloved Summer (SBS) fame and directed by the great Oh Choong-hwan, who has also helmed tvN’s Castaway Diva and Start-Up.

Promising to be a healing and cute romance to brighten up our Valentine’s Day, Melo Movie tells the story of Ko Gyeom (Choi Woo-shik), a movie buff who wants to become an actor. He crosses paths with Kim Mubee (Park Bo-young), a young woman working in the film industry. She has a love-hate relationship with cinema because of her father, who died trying to become a film director. Meanwhile, Hong Si-jun (Lee Jun-young) is an aspiring musician whose ex-girlfriend, Son Jun-ah (Jeon So-nee, who you might have seen in 2023’s Soulmate), is a screenwriter. These four people embark on a journey of romance and self-discovery as they chase their dreams.

We’re going to break down this script, so this review is definitely full of spoilers. If you want a quick, spoiler-free answer to “should I watch this?”, try our spoiler-free summary at the end!

Melo Movie: The Positives and Negatives

Melo Movie can entertain romantic drama enthusiasts thanks to a charming cast and a non-linear narrative that masks the weaknesses of its script. Featuring a slow-paced drama that touches on loneliness, grief, and trauma, Melo Movie offers a bittersweet tale that feels a bit lifeless at times — but offers more than a few extremely cathartic and sentimental moments to keep its target audience engaged.

Here, I’d like to add a quick reminder that, in Korean, “melo” is a word used to describe a romantic drama: a romance that isn’t comical but that presents more intense, dramatic elements. In English, “melodrama” is a subgenre of drama that sensationalises events and characters to evoke strong emotions from its viewers. So “melodramas” often include a group of stereotypical roles facing extreme conflicts. If you want to learn more about it, I highly recommend Studio Binder’s article on Melodrama.

Melo Movie isn’t a classic melodrama but a drama: it tries to portray a group of realistic characters facing realistic problems. Strangely enough for a romantic drama, the dynamic that truly engages is the relationship between Gyeom and his brother, Jun (Kim Jae-wook). While we only seem to reach the surface of the struggles of our four protagonists, Jun is the one character in the show with tangible depth.

The direction, much in Oh Choong-hwan style, is stunning. He offers his fair share of gorgeous leading lines and one-point perspective compositions. The colours and the production design are also excellent — and feel extremely nostalgic if you were born in the 90s. The soundtrack is often melodic, sweet, and just a tad melancholic. The cast also wholeheartedly embraces their characters.

However, with a verbose script counting on an excessive amount of narration and explanatory dialogue, Melo Movie establishes a universe that lacks energy and a tone that sometimes feels inconsistent (ranging from overly dramatic to overtly silly). Despite offering some important themes, they are explored superficially in a story that relies on coincidences galore and with characters lacking solid motivation.

Melo Movie as A Story of Relationships

The narrative of Melo Movie is divided into four strands. Friendships are secondary to the story, so we’re focusing on romantic and familial bonds. The most important one is, of course, Gyeom and Mubee’s relationship. Then, you also have Mubee and her parents, Gyeom and his brother Jun (Kim Jae-wook), and Si-jun and Ju-a’s relationship.

Gyeom and Mubee: A Relationship That Happens Off-Screen

Mubee and Gyeom are two young people who meet while working in the film industry. While Gyeom is instantly smitten, Mubee finds him strange and irritating. She often rejects his advances and doesn’t make an effort to engage in conversation with him. Her seemingly cold and distant personality is justified by an upbringing in which she felt unloved, and, as an adult, she openly declares not to be interested in getting to know anyone.

During their time together shooting Director Ma (Ko Chang-seok)’s film, Mubee and Gyeom don’t really establish a consistent bond that can be considered more than a superficial crush. Nothing really happens to change Mubee’s perspective of Gyeom, which makes us wonder why she decides to kiss him after the wrap-up party. If she isn’t keen to get to know people and nothing has happened to help her overcome the emotional scars of her childhood, then why has she decided to give Gyeom a shot?

That introduces us to the main problem of Melo Movie: the characters’ motivations are awfully flimsy.

Relying on Coincidences: A “Serendipity” Movie

By trying to be both character-driven and plot-driven, Melo Movie is neither. The plot doesn’t have any marked sequence of cause and effect. Actually, most events in the story happen on the basis of coincidence and not causality. For example:

1. Gyeom loses touch with Mubee right after their kiss because his brother happens to suffer an accident that same day;
2. After two years without contact, Gyeom decides to call Mubee on the exact same day Mubee decides to block his number;
3. Mubee’s only friend returns to see her right after Gyeom moves to the house across the street;
4. The day after Mubee’s mother mentions that Gyeom might get tired of waiting for her to make up her mind, he stands her up.

Coincidence much? One event doesn’t necessarily lead to the other, happening in a sequence of flukes instead.

On the other hand, Melo Movie isn’t a strong character-driven story either. The characters aren’t especially active, and changes in their behaviour don’t necessarily come from new experiences or discoveries. In a character-driven story, they are supposed to be dynamic characters, actively creating their transformative journey. But, in Melo Movie, characters change without any particular reason — or maybe because we’re supposed to infer that conversations were had off-screen.

For instance, Gyeom and Mubee are never seen actually discussing the reason why they spent 5 years without contacting one another. After Gyeom comes back into her life, there are no significant events that cause a change in Mubee’s character besides his unwavering persistence (which is the same as it was five years ago and now). Mubee has no reason to believe he won’t “abandon” her again. Still, she starts falling for his advances and decides to “bump into” him at the Takoyaki place in episode 6. After he stands her up, she simply believes that her behaviour has been misleading (like her mother mentioned) and decides to doll up and ask him out the following day. Gyeom, once again, doesn’t contact her and lets her wait for him for hours.

To show character growth here, we could’ve had Mubee either send him a text asking if he was okay or ask him directly what happened the following morning. Gyeom could’ve sent her a text after taking his brother home or before going to bed, apologising. That would’ve shown the audience that these characters aren’t behaving the exact same way they have always done (in Gyeom’s case) or doing a 180-degree flip without continuous change (in Mubee’s case).

How can we, as the audience, believe that their relationship will develop into a solid one, with proper communication, if the characters continue repeating the same behaviour patterns?

From this moment onwards, Mubee becomes an incredibly sweet girlfriend. We don’t know how that happened exactly. She’s never been keen to get to know people. She doesn’t have any friends (besides her returning childhood pal) and doesn’t seem to have had any previous romantic relationships. Her interactions with her mother are few and far between, and her relationship with Gyeom doesn’t undergo any major changes before episode 6.

So… why? How? When?

Considering the number of plot devices offered to bring these two characters together, their relationship feels almost obsessive and with an unhealthy amount of co-dependency at times. It’s as if Gyeom’s and Mubee’s characters only exist for one another, and the centre of their universes is their romantic partner. At the same time, there’s no real sense of longing between them, which makes for a flat romantic dynamic and more of a friendship.

In episode 8, after Mubee declares her love for rom-coms, I couldn’t help but wonder if her distorted view of relationships comes from too many romantic movies. Is it because she’s seen all those male leads chasing their beloved, offering grand romantic gestures, that she believes it’s best to play hard-to-get at first? That’s a question I don’t have an answer for, but here it is as food for thought.

Mubee and Her Parents: An Underdeveloped Conflict

Mubee’s personality is defined by her relationship with her father (played by Kim Da-hwin), a film buff who dedicated his life to becoming a director. As a child, she didn’t feel loved by him because he seemed to care more about movies than about her. She grew up angry at the world, as she didn’t get the attention she wanted.

Mubee never really got to truly understand her father’s love for film or to re-establish a healthy relationship with him. Unfortunately, her father, overworked and exhausted, suffered an accident on his way home one night and died. You eventually find out that his death lies at the core of her trauma, as he only came home late at night that day because Mubee demanded that he forgo the project he was working on and return to celebrate her birthday. Understandably, she feels guilty about it, but besides a confession, nothing happens to transform Mubee’s perspective of herself or her dad.

Throughout this entire journey, her mother (played by Kim Hee-jung) was consistently by her side, doing whatever possible to support and care for her. However, Mubee has only ever had eyes for her father. In the present, exchanges between Mubee and her mother don’t happen that often. Even when they do, Mubee is often keen to hide information from her, which shows that Mubee has never really let her mother in.

But, in episode 10, Mubee and her mother have a heartfelt conversation in which Mubee suddenly realises that she’s always been loved by her mom — it’s just that she never noticed it. For the audience, that scene might have worked as a satisfying conclusion to her “years of trauma,” but, for the narrative, it once again presents a development that wasn’t set up consistently. Her broken relationship with her parents is only directly touched on in the last few episodes of the series. This mother-daughter relationship only gets properly addressed in the very last episode. Mubee wasn’t active enough in the story to set up a character arc that led them to that scene — and the plot didn’t establish a sequence of cause-and-effect actions that led to that conclusion either.

Gyeom and Jun: The Heart of Melo Movie

Melo Movie finds its heart in the relationship between Gyeom and his brother Jun. Even though the entire cast offers great performances, it’s Kim Jae-wook who gives life to this narrative.

Jun feels equally fragile and strong, as you come to understand that he wholeheartedly embraced the role of father, brother, and friend to his younger brother after their parents’ passing. The love they feel for each other shines bright in every scene Gyeom and Jun share, as they try to protect and help each other. However, Jun is clearly suffering from depression, which leads to a suicide attempt with a lifetime of consequences. And so, their relationship is endlessly more complex than the romantic relationship that is supposed to be the main storyline of the series. You can see it clearly in episode 7, in which the two brothers have an argument that illustrates all the layers of their bond: love, fear, sorrow, hope, anxiety, angst, and respect.

Actually, if the show had eliminated the romance plotline and focused on their brotherhood, the entire series might have had a greater emotional impact. That point is easily proven by the excellent episode 7, undoubtedly the strongest episode of the show, which focuses on their relationship and Jun’s perspective of their life together.

But, since the show prioritised the main romantic storyline, even Jun is sadly misused and underdeveloped. For instance, we have one scene where we realise Jun doesn’t visit their parents’ grave. Why? Is it because their parents were abusive? Because he never got over their passing? Never got the chance to fully grieve as he had to take care of his brother?

The life that Jun had outside the realm of Gyeom’s eyes was barely shown to us, and he dies without really opening up to his brother face-to-face. He dies without facing his sorrows, without his brother really knowing whether or not he lived a life that brought him joy. Jun’s death is another plot device that doesn’t benefit Jun’s character at all but serves as a tool to show that Mubee is now fully present in her relationship with Gyeom. Gyeom’s emotional struggles are superficially “explored” only in the final three episodes. Considering all the losses he’s suffered in life, Gyeom’s grief is portrayed inconsistently and, once again, only serves to prove that Mubee can now be a supportive and understanding girlfriend. So much so that even though several characters try to help Gyeom mourn, it’s only (the miraculous saint) Mubee that can get to him.

The brothers’ final scene in episode 10 does make you sob endless rivers (I know I did), but, for the narrative, it doesn’t offer much. Gyeom doesn’t have the emotional stability and readiness to go through an imaginary heart-to-heart with his late brother. And so, narratively, it becomes an easy and quick way to give Gyeom’s character arc a tidy ending. That scene only serves as an emotional release for the audience — but is a clichéd device within the script.

Si-jun and Ju-a: Portraying an Immature, Unhealthy Relationship

Si-jun and Ju-a offer a bit of realism to what feels like a run-of-the-mill fairytale in the main romance.

Lee Jun-young shines as Si-jun, an aspiring musician who struggles to find his place in the industry. Personally, Si-jun fails to realise that, even though he loved Ju-a, he never showed any interest in who she was as an individual. Jun-young excels at showing both the joy of being in a happy relationship and the pain of being left behind.

Meanwhile, Ju-a spent years in a relationship in which she felt almost compelled to be her boyfriend’s ideal type, patiently doing everything he loved and forgiving the moments in which her needs and goals were ignored. Interestingly enough, when she realises that this can’t continue, she simply breaks up with Si-jun without offering him a proper explanation. She doesn’t try to talk to him and work on their relationship together. She simply leaves.

It’s then understandable that Si-jun feels wronged: after all, for him, the relationship had always been perfect. This lack of communication might feel a bit frustrating, but it portrays a fairly realistic bond between two immature young people.

Both Si-jun and Ju-a are deeply flawed characters, and despite a romantic attraction, they are incompatible for several different reasons. Their romantic relationship was unhealthy, but neither of them really understood why. It’s only through their attempt to create something together that they are (quite literally) locked together in a space that forces them to speak up, face each other, and come to terms with each other’s feelings.

However, even the two of them feel underdeveloped. It would’ve been interesting to understand Si-jun’s dynamic with his family and how that affects him. It would’ve been great to understand why Ju-a is also always alone (why are all women in this show alone all the time?) and why she chose not to talk to Si-jun before breaking up with him.

The Netflix Effect: Melo Movie’s Overly Descriptive Dialogue

Journalist Will Tavlin wrote an incredible essay for N+1 Magazine called “Casual Viewing“. In it, he discusses how Netflix has grown to become this media giant that is now influencing the shape of cinema and television. After noting the lower quality of current Netflix original productions, he mentions:

Such slipshod filmmaking works for the streaming model, since audiences at home are often barely paying attention. Several screenwriters who’ve worked for the streamer told me a common note from company executives is “have this character announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.” (…)

One tag among Netflix’s thirty-six thousand microgenres offers a suitable name for this kind of dreck: “casual viewing.” Usually reserved for breezy network sitcoms, reality television, and nature documentaries, the category describes much of Netflix’s film catalog — movies that go down best when you’re not paying attention, or as the Hollywood Reporter recently described Atlas, a 2024 sci-fi film starring Jennifer Lopez, “another Netflix movie made to half-watch while doing laundry.” A high-gloss product that dissolves into air. Tide Pod cinema.

All shows and films contain a certain amount of descriptive or explanatory dialogue. However, cinema and television are visual arts and reach their finest form when using images as a means to convey information. The greatest films and TV series are the ones that offer visual information and sharp, meaningful dialogue. Even though the cinematic adage “show, don’t tell” shouldn’t be taken to an extreme — after all, dialogue in sound film is vital for a story too —, Netflix productions have clearly resorted to an abundance of unnecessary lines.

Melo Movie is constantly narrated, almost as if it’s an audiobook. Everything — absolutely everything — is described and explained. We’re spoonfed the characters’ feelings, struggles, backstories, and goals. The narration does go down from the fourth episode onwards, but even then, moments of silence are few and far between.

Melo Movie is full of overly descriptive lines that don’t add anything of value to the story. For instance, in episode 1, Ju-a arrives at Si-jun’s studio with an envelope.

“Ta-da! Guess what this is!” she says excitedly.
“What?” Si-jun responds.
She gives him the envelope, but he doesn’t open it. The objective here might have been to introduce the fact that Si-jun doesn’t show much interest in Ju-a’s goals — which later leads to their break-up.
“I signed up for this. A screenwriting contest,” Ju-a then explains.
“Screenwriting? You?” Si-jun questions.
“Yes, I want to give it a real shot now,” Ju-a responds.

Instead of all these lines, Ju-a could’ve arrived and said,
“Ta-da! Guess what this is!“
“What?” Si-jun responds.
She gives him the envelope, but he doesn’t open it. She stares at him impatiently. He doesn’t seem that interested. Still in Si-jun’s hands, Ju-a opens the envelope herself, excitedly. An insert shot shows us the piece of paper (some sort of sign-up form for a screenwriting contest). Through the image, we know what she’s doing (we later find out that she’s a screenwriter anyway). Here, Si-jun could’ve even responded with “Screenwriting? You?” or even “Are you sure?” and the dialogue would continue as normal.

In the second option, we’re not only eliminating meaningless dialogue but also portraying Ju-a’s excitement and Si-jun’s indifference in a much clearer way.

Another line that comes to mind is in episode 6. Mubee and Gyeom go for a ride. Once the car breaks down, Mubee asks, “Did the car just stop here?“. The character doesn’t need to describe the event: we can see it. She can, however, react to it. If you really can’t rely on just an expression, Mubee could’ve said something like, “Oh, God… how are we going to fix this car now?” or “Tell me you have insurance, right?” or even, “Okaaaaaay… This isn’t good…“

Dialogue in Melo Movie is full of descriptions, explanations, and theatrical lines that may be sentimental but often sound unnatural or weirdly placed in the narrative. No one is that poetic in real life, but I guess the theatricality could be explained by the fact that the show wants to use some melodramatic elements in its construction.

Either way, that doesn’t help a narrative that doesn’t have much energy. Melo Movie may be cute, but it’s often bland. Its main love story is an old-fashioned tale of a boy who develops a massive crush on a girl and keeps insisting until she gives in. Let’s not get into the problematics of this premise — if you felt uncomfortable with it, that’s absolutely normal. The show does try to portray it as the clichéd male persistence, but since Gyeom isn’t a toxic character, I won’t get into it.

The Matter of Filmmaking In Melo Movie

We all know that the film industry in Korea has been facing a crisis in the past few years. In September 2024, The Korea Times published an article entitled “Korean commercial film industry faces investment drought“, which stated:

The number of commercial films scheduled for release in theaters next year and the year after is expected to drop significantly, raising concerns that the struggling Korean film industry may plunge deeper into crisis.

“The major investment and distribution companies are barely reviewing new projects. In my 25 years in the film industry, this is the first time that both planning and production have come to a complete halt,” said an official from a film company.

Earlier this year, the KOFIC (Korean Film Council) announced a brand-new initiative that injects 10 billion won into low to medium-budget movies to encourage the production of more (and more diverse) feature films.

Considering the context we’re all inserted in, Melo Movie isn’t the story we should be telling right now.

I won’t get into the particulars of the portrayal of Mubee’s job as a director (unless the Korean film industry works very differently from Western productions, I couldn’t really understand Mubee’s job as a director, but I digress). What really hurts is that, at first, films are portrayed as a tool of discovery, healing, self-expression, and bonding. Gyeom’s passion for cinema resonates with any of us who love films, and it’s incredibly charming to watch.

However, as the story progresses, movies become an almost unhealthy mask behind which Gyeom hides, which is what somehow hinders his development. In the last episode, they come to the conclusion that movies are just fantasy, and he needs to live his life now, as if living and watching films can’t co-exist. That’s why Gyeom decides to completely give up on films at the end, saying that “Kim Mubee is the only movie in his life now” (yes, I cringed with this line too).

While the premise promises characters “running after their dreams,” this portrayal of cinema raises a question: what really are Gyeom’s and Mubee’s dreams? Gyeom gives up on the film industry, so his dream isn’t to be an actor or a critic. Mubee is constantly indifferent towards cinema and never “dreams” of becoming a director. She ends up doing it purely because she’s good at it and it’s a means through which she can pay her bills.

As both Gyeom and Mubee end up seeing filmmaking as any other skill, without any important emotional or social role in our lives, Melo Movie seems to say that cinema isn’t really needed. It’s superfluous. It distracts us from fully living our lives. For a country with a film industry in crisis, that definitely isn’t what you should be telling your audience.

[Spoiler-free] Should You Watch Melo Movie?

It’s difficult to say. Stories are very subjective, and none of them resonates with everyone. Melo Movie is the kind of series that really needs to be tested — so if you’re a romantic drama fan, I’d recommend watching the first episode (or two).

If you connect with the main characters, you might be able to engage in its non-linear structure enough not to notice the weaknesses in the script. Melo Movie offers both quiet and loud romances, more hopeful and more realistic perspectives, a commentary on loneliness and loss, and an absolutely marvellous relationship between two brothers who might be emotionally broken but do their best to support each other despite their sorrows.

If the characters don’t resonate with you, you might start paying too much attention to the narrative’s structure (and the excess of narration), which might ruin the experience for you.

Give it a shot and let me know in the comments what you thought about it!

You can watch Melo Movie on:

You can also pin our spoiler-free summary!