miaharpr Review of It's Okay to Not Be Okay

It's Okay to Not Be Okay (2020)

A lot of fanservice and too much hype

[5/10 · 12 August 2020]

I love Kim Soo Hyun, let's get that out of the way first. He's the reason why I watched this show. He's a remarkable and versatile actor and devastatingly handsome. I've followed his career since Dream High and loved every one of his dramas...except this. I can see the premise of the show, and it was actually promising at the beginning. As someone who suffers from mental health issues, I could relate with that aspect of the show, although as one of the reviewers mentioned, it glamourized mental illness...that part of it I didn't like. I do appreciate the healing side of the show and how the characters eventually experience growth and transformation. I also liked how they related every episode to a fairy tale. The concept was there, the execution, not so much. Sometimes the acting was too cheesy. I even felt KSH hammed it up in certain scenes. I liked the Sang-tae actor, he deserves an award for his portrayal. I also liked the secondary characters like Juri, Jae-Soo, and Manager Lee. KSH and Seo Ye-ji did have chemistry off screen (I watched BTS too many times to know), but I personally felt something was missing from their on screen chemistry. The plot was predictable-I already knew, for instance, in episode 2 or 3 who her mother was-and the script was pretty basic. It didn't give me anything new or something to ruminate on. It was literally just a CW show with Korean actors, and one of the reviewers on here actually mentioned how the appeal of kdramas is that they are for the most part more chaste...this was pretty daring, I must say. Very Hollywood, indeed...and I guess that's the effect of kdramas becoming more internationally known, and with the Netflix crossover, one can definitely feel the Western influences on the show (e.g. music soundtrack which I felt didn't match the show's mood). There were many ship-worthy scenes, which I would like to go back to, but the beauty of Gang-tae and Moon-young's relationship was "the chase". Once it got to ep. 15 and 16, where the two become an item and do their business, it lost its appeal for me. It seems like the show knew what the audience wanted and gave it regardless of whether the quality was good or not. Some scenes could have been done differently or left to the imagination, but I'm obviously the minority on this. Then the villain which **spoiler alert** the show built up to be this super evil and scary witch-once she makes her reveal, she's eliminated in the same episode like a pesky fly lol a little anti-climatic. I laughed because she waited, what was it, 25 years? To have her revenge. It would have been better if she just tormented her daughter from afar. She got caught by the police so easily and wasn't much of a threat. Finally, never in real life would I buy a book by Moon-Young for a child lol what crazy parent would? And ep.16 was unnecessarily long...even felt longer than the Lord of the Rings 3's ending.