Love and Fortune (2018)

It's quite shocking, yes, to watch a drama where a woman of 32 falls in love and starts a relationship with a young man of 15. I thought to myself "Maybe I shouldn't watch this" and "If this was a reversal story I for certain wouldn't watch this", but I did it anyway and there's hypocrisy there somewhere.

I guess I just couldn't drop it. This is the most beautifully shot drama at Netflix this year (and I watched "The end of the fucking World"). The color palette is lovely, and there are some truly inspiring scenes. All of them related to the sea, some of them part of a mini film inputted in the drama. Besides, a 12 episodes drama with ~25min each seems like a pretty tight story - and it was!

The story flows in unexpected ways, and it carries you seamlessly. There are many things going on with this drama, and not superficially. You will wonder how it was able to show so much, to affect so much, and be so short.

It's less than 6hours in total, but I couldn't binge watch it because I kept stopping to ~think~ about what was happening. It's not tragic, it's not violent (in the strict sense of the word), but it is a very ~heavy~ drama that makes you question your morals, society, pressure in women in particular, infidelity, and also how naive teenagers really are. Not light themes, eh?

Although the drama doesn't shy of showing the main character sexual relationship, never for once the drama will try to normalize it. Sometimes it can even be uncomfortable. And not only between her and the teenager but between her and the man as well.

In the end, I felt like I was following the life of a lost woman, a naive woman, maybe a good woman (?), who is passing through the single most important months of her life. Independent of agreeing or not with her, everything will be affected by the choices that she makes here - and she has just started to realize that. You don't find much stuff as interesting as it is going on here.

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Def found this more entertaining than Chuugakusei Nikki, it def felt more real and raw while C.N. felt like a glossed-up version of this type of storytelling. I gotta agree with the other commentators about the cinematography- not only beautiful but really cool.
Her being 31/32 and him being 15- I think that's the youngest age gap I've seen and at this point I'm not even put off by it anymore lol
There are so many movies/ dramas with an older guy and younger girl and never do I ever hear any complaints but switch the roles and everybody is up in arms. The pattern I'm seeing with these kinds of stories is that even though the guy is young, the girl is emotionally stinted; so in that aspect they are both the same age. In one episode Yumeaki tells Wako to stop acting like a child and that line genuinely took me off guard lol The child telling the adult to stop acting like a child even though his character... let's just say he has his issues.
Personally I think there is nothing wrong with a genuine friendship but lets leave the romantic stuff until they are at least adult enough to handle/ understand their emotions a bit.
I would recommend this but only for those who are mature enough to handle it. (netflix)

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