Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lesson

Here we go, another childhood friend rom-com. I know that there are a lot of cliché swoon lovers out there who don’t mind the cliché plot in Love Next Door at all. To be honest, it doesn’t bother me that much because it has other qualities that make me set other aspects as the focus of the series and not the typical romance budding between childhood friends.

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
The main couple of the series (Source: Netflix)

Love Next Door Synopsis

The premise of the drama is simple. 3 childhood friends maintained their strong bond despite being far away once they reached the peak of their lives – each with their achievements.

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
The 3 characters on the right build the premise of the 3 childhood friends’ story (Source: Soompi)

The glories of one of them, Bae Seok-ryu (Jung So-min) outstood them all when Seok-ryu managed to land a job in New York with a giant IT company as a programmer. She also managed to get engaged with a competent lawyer who graduated from Harvard Law School. The talk of the town – literally.

The other 2 friends are successful as well. Choi Seung-hyo (Jung Hae-in) has grown his reputation to be one of the best and most distinctive architects in South Korea. He even built his company in his hometown, due to its heritage preciousness. The last friend, named Mo-eum (Kim Ji-eun) is a respectable 119 emergency rescuer in the city. What is more noble than saving lives in their critical moments?

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
To be honest, Mo-eum is my favorite character as well, because she’s strong and badass!! (Source: ScreenRant)

But, why did this drama receive so many views despite so much hate for the cliché romance? So cliché that the second lead’s relationship has a thicker plot?

Love Yourself

The drama throttled when the most successful friend among the 3 – Seok-ryu, was suddenly back in South Korea without any notice or news. She was last heard getting ready for her wedding which was a month away. Seok-ryu refused to tell everyone the real reason why she came back. She only informed people around her that her fiancé and she had decided to separate and not move forward with their wedding.

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
Seok-ryu’s sudden comeback to South Korea as if nothing happened (Source: ScreenRant)

The news received a severe backlash – literally, from her mother, who always boasts around the town about how successful her daughter is, who also landed a Harvard Law graduate as a future husband… you know, how parents try to redeem themselves by making their children become successful instead of them? How parents always say they regret not studying properly and having a proper job? To not choose a life partner more carefully? How parents raise their children as their pension? Yeah, there’s all that.

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
Seok-ryu’s mother kept pressing her to apply for another job at big companies instead of pursuing her dream of becoming a chef. (Source: Forbes)

For me, that’s the main focus of the drama, not the rom-com per se. Hence, I don’t really mind the cliché plot because it’s just a supportive part. What’s important in a slice-of-life drama is how closely the drama manages to make viewers relate to the life of the actors. Every situation, every word, every action, every eye movement – are not menial but greatly impact the watching experience.

In this case, I’m sure a lot of people who stay with this series till the end are mostly working adults. Especially those who have done nothing but study and work since they opened their eyes to the world. The feeling of always needing to give your best and top in everything, because there are a lot of hearts you need to take care of – but yours. The feeling of giving up, but you can’t, because your life is not yours, but your parents’ – that’s what you’ve been trained in.

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
The scene when everything is about to come to the surface (Source: ScreenRant)

Of course, the real reason was later revealed in the series as to why Seok-ryu made such a drastic decision and left everything behind in New York. It turned out that due to her being in full gear in her life since she was a kid and never had a rest, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer and faced racism in her American company. She took a 3 years hiatus in New York for the operation without her family knowing. Suffered from depression until her fiancé got tired of her black days. She felt lost in her life, lost in her career, lost in love, lost in everything.

You may rest. You may.

Love Your Blood

The family issue in this drama is very strong and impactful. Since we have 3 childhood friends, we also have 3 different family backgrounds. One with a family of a single mother, one with a housewife mother & a small street vendor owner, and one with a career woman mother & a busy doctor father. It really closes up on the life and public narrative of each type of family. The perspectives from the parents, and also from the child.

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
One of the moments to show that being a parent is a lifetime job, it will never be easy (Source: Leisurebyte)

Love Your Dream

The scene of how Seok-ryu changes her path from being a skilful programmer to a Korean Cuisine trainee might look selfish to others. People will think that changing direction in a career path at the last minute is a privilege. It’s not. She didn’t resign from her work to chase her dream. She found her dream while she was lost. It’s different. The point here is to not stay in your darkness. Find the light – in fact, create a hole for the light to peek through.

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
Seok-ryu in her Korean Cuisine cooking class (Source: Netflix)

Seok-ryu struggled with herself a lot in the drama even after she found her dream. Things like what if she fails? What if the plan doesn’t provide an outcome? What if everything she did was useless? Is it too late for her to return to New York be it a life full of thorns? Thousands of ‘what ifs’. All the question makes her stay in one place and doesn’t move. Instead of pursuing, she keeps on thinking – which doesn’t move her anywhere.

Hence, to those of you who are still wondering what you should do in your life, try everything. Look back on what you enjoy. Or at least on what you hate the least. Focus on that path until you make it. It’s okay if you fail. It takes failures to know what success means.

Love Your Friendship

Another moving side of the drama – friendship. Please don’t miss the friendship between the mothers by focusing too much on the friendship of the 3 main characters. How many of you still have friends from your school days? Appreciate them as they have seen a lot. Not to mention the creation of a new friendship between the fathers.

Love Next Door – A Bad Rom-com, An Excellent Life Lessons
The mothers with the heart of teenagers (Source: Soompi)

Yes, blood is thicker than water, but for some people, let’s be honest, friends know much more about you than your family. You will argue one day – a big argument to the point of you severing the friendship, but you will one day realize it’s not that easy to cut your ties with them and it’s such a waste to hold your grudge for too long. Be open and communicate. You can make more friends, but no one is better than your longtime friends who were there with you through thick and thin.

Conclusion

I would include the male lead’s struggle in his glory days as a swimming athlete, but it’s kind of similar to Seok-ryu’s case with very little differences, so, never mind that.

Yes, if you ask me to rate the romance as the main aspect of the drama, I will rate Love Next Door 3/10. However, if you could open your eyes and not focus on the romance but on the other above-mentioned aspects, you would understand it, especially if you have gone through, or are currently going through the same life crisis.

From those other aspects, and for the drama as a whole, I rate Love Next Door 6/10. It’s not as heavy as my usual likeness, not as light as my usual watch-while-eating drama, and not as plain as my porridge for when I have a cold. It’s just nice.

If you haven’t watched the drama, I’m sorry for the spoilers. Consider it a warning as I write what I honestly think for all my K-drama reviews. Until the next article, TTO BOJAA!

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