Between Him and Her (2023)

About a love that has somehow lost its suitability for everyday life over the years

“Between Him and Her” is an alternative to the tried and tested Cinderella love story, which usually ends with a supposedly “they lived together happily ever after”. Therefore, this story is about 7 years later...

The KDrama is rather down-to-earth. It is set within the world of young creatives of Seoul´s fashion scene and tells about a love that has somehow lost its suitability for everyday life over the years. A love that became a habit.

Eventually, a critical moment causes the barrel of internal, unnamed, silent, consuming dissatisfaction to overflow and thus gives necessary strength to actually question everything. However, questioning everything also means having to ask yourself the unpleasant questions. Unfortunately, the answers are not clearly “yes” or “no”. They´re lurking subtly, are not always logical, nor pragmatic or even negotiable. Sometimes it's a "Yes. But." Sometimes it's a "No. But." The problem is: whether it's "yes" or "no", both are true. Love is not always automatically suitable for a partnership... and even if so, this cannot be considered a given either. Nevertheless, that doesn't make such a love any less true or valuable.

For outsiders, on the other hand, the matter may seem more evident. As a audience, we might want to shake one or the other. But in the end the answer unfolds exclusively from within the very personal, complicated emotional world of him and her. Nobody else can have a say. And the KDrama conveys that quite vividly, rather authentic and painfully realistic, too.

Accordingly, the pacing as the two protagonists are taking stock of their emotional relationship, is rather cautious and introspective. Therefore, subplots are providing some invigorating comedy and a bit of drama on the outside, thus pleasantly topping off this little study on certain facets about love.

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A Rundown and Ruined version of Webtoon that ain't worth your time

When the show was announced I was looking forward to it as I liked the webtoon which showed a relatable and painful side to the end of a relationship between a couple who had been together for a long while.

I had high expectations from the show but what what I get is a pathetic shitshow between a cold woman who enjoys gaslighting her pathetic, crying and no self respect of an ex-bf. The show will make you hate the guts out of leads especially FL and makes you want to slap some sense into the doormat of an ML who all he does is begging for a second chance. The show keeps on dragging and suffering with each episode. They changed many things from webtoon and only to make things worse.

I would say the side couples are way more interesting then the leads as atleast they have some progression while for the leads there is nothing......no story progression, no character development, dragged misunderstandings, FL being a total bitch to ML and all he does is get drunk and cry in front of her only to get rejected by her again and again.

The show ruined the entire depth behind FL's character and her decisions. The woman I rooted for so much in the webtoon became the most disliked and toxic FL who deserves to be alone .

Do yourself a favor, ignore this suffering of a show and just read the webtoon

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Relationship seem real…

Loved this drama! I always rooted for them! It was like a real life relationship. They needed some time to workout all the pain that goes in to a breakup.

This is what I loved the most… I loved that writers showed his pain more. Usually it’s always on females. Loved his pain and vulnerability. He was so emotional and regretted what he had and lost.

I was ok with a “happy ending”. Although my happy ending is probably not others happy ending. They talked, had some good conversations and finally had the closure they deserved and can move on. This for me is a “happy ending”.

Like:
ML pain and vulnerability
They had difficulties cause by themselves, not others
Talked it out in different conversations.
It looked like a real relationship
Acting was good

Dislike:
Waiting one week for 1 episode (this didn’t help at all this drama)
Too much time on side couples. (at least the first 5-6 episodes)
Halfway I didn’t understand FL since she seemed ok but later I understood her when they had telephone conversation). Not everyone reacts or work the same after a breakup.

Although it looked like they cheated to each other, they didn’t really cheat and this is probably why I thought that they could work it out and go back together since they had some good talking.

They were a young couple in a relationship of 7 years. They had so much memories together and was even harder for them to restart and heal.

I’m usually not a critical reviewer so this is my pov that maybe it’s not yours.

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A lot of angst, not a lot of substance

I should preface, I don't hate the show. I don't believe there is anything that is glaringly bad, but I also don't think there is anything worth talking about either. I want to go over what I liked and disliked, but it has to be mentioned that the end couples have to be spoil, if it really is even a spoiler, because ultimately the show felt like a means to an end, without the ending monologue the show genuinely has no purpose of existing, which I'll elaborate more on later. I first want to get out of the way what I liked about the show.

The actors, the main couple was fine, no issues there, the side characters were a bit much for me. Also, the fact that the main couple didn't get back together, that would've instantly plunged this rating down to a 5.

Now on to the bad. The main issues this show suffers from is boredom, nothing really happens. And I think that stems from 2 main things, it's trying to be grounded and realistic, and it focuses too much on love. What do I mean by that. When you watch those YouTube videos of "Here's a day in the life of blah blah blah", that is rarely ever a day that is perfectly representative of their day. Why? Because it'd be too boring to show you an average day. Shows, and especially Kdramas, try to filter out the mundane and cut to the more dramatic parts. This show does not. The guy mops around for 5 episodes reminiscing and drinking. The girl is trying to stay strong, but she's clearly also affected by the breakup, and we have to see her go from "I'm fine" and crying for the same duration. Realistically, yes, two normal mature adults going through a breakup are upset and coping. The issue is why could that constitute as a show? Nothing ever really happens; you're just dragged along by 2 sad people and their own thoughts about a breakup. A breakup that is somewhat validated. There was no driving event, they just grew tired of each other.

Which segways into the 2nd issue, the show ONLY focuses on romantic relationships. They don't introduce anything new to the show conceptually. Maybe now that they are apart you show the effect on their friend group, or maybe their worklife? Nope they just stop hanging out as a group, and when the guys/girls get together separately, the conversation starts as "huh we all don't see each other anymore" straight into "so how's everyone relationship going. The guy tries to start working on his company, nope, can't forget his ex who he used to work with. The girl goes to a new company to pursue her original dream, nope ex-college friend who wants to be in a relationship with her and that's the only time you see her working, when he's in frame as well. Nothing is happening, the story is told through the perspective of the 2 main characters to the detriment of the show. We never see other people's perspectives and there are no external conflicts being addressed.

The final scene ends with a standard monologue, something you could see happening 6 episodes back. To me it felt like they found some random buzzword quotes on a 14-year old's Tumblr page about love and went backwards from there to tell a relationship that would satisfy the ending. You could've easily condensed this show into 3 episodes for each of the couples and ended with the monologue and had the same exact effect. The show simply dragged on nothing for too long.

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Lento, ma coerente

Ho letto solo recensioni negative su questo drama, ma a dire la verità a me è piaciuto, in primo luogo perché l'ho trovato coerente dall'inizio alla fine, e poi perché è molto realistico nel presentare situazioni e sentimenti, con tratti commoventi. L'attore principale è molto bravo, lei bellissima ma non particolarmente espressiva . Simpatici i personaggi secondari. Ci sono rimasta male per come è finito, anche perché il preview della penultima puntata faceva capire ben altro. 12 puntate e poi è finita come era iniziata... del resto nella vita spesso va così.

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La fine di una storia... Che resta tale.

Serie davvero deludente, dove la trama stessa è il principale difetto. Il drama inizia con la rottura della coppia - insieme da una vita ma ormai non più affiatata, bensì adagiata a una noiosa routine - e da lì si passa al momento post rottura, accettata più facilmente da lei ma non da lui, che cerca di porre rimedio riscoprendo tutto a un tratto emozioni e sentimenti che si erano persi nella quotidianità. Lei sostanzialmente rimane sulle sue, fa i primi passi per andare oltre, certo con difficoltà. Lui, palesemente affranto, fa più fatica a rialzarsi. Lei in qualche modo lo supporta e alla fine anche lui accetta la rottura. Dovessi riassumere l'idea alla base della serie, è che ci vuole tempo per superare la fine di una relazione duratura.
Però, insomma, l'evoluzione è tutta lì. Oltre che un po' triste - gli unici momenti che mi hanno emozionata sono stati momenti comunque tristi - mi sembra comunque davvero un po' povera come idea per pretendere di costruirci sopra un'intera serie.
Per quanto riguarda gli attori, lui più espressivo ma a pelle poco simpatico, lei più piacevole ma abbastanza ermetica.
La magra consolazione è che non c'è stato uno spreco di potenziale (né gli attori, né il concept della serie, né altro). Evitabilissima.

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