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DramaHeroine

The Pages of a Fairytale

DramaHeroine

The Pages of a Fairytale
Hello, Me! korean drama review
Completed
Hello, Me!
2 people found this review helpful
by DramaHeroine
Apr 17, 2021
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.5
Story 6.5
Acting/Cast 8.5
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 5.0
This review may contain spoilers
I'm gonna say right off the bat that this is not a strongly written, tightly plotted drama. It has some obvious flaws that are apparent from the first episode. But it's heartwarming and thoughtful and sprinkled with humor (and some tears for good measure), so I don't think it is without any merit.

Of course, because this drama has time-travel in it, we get to see both the modern day and the past, and there are good and bad things to this. Mainly that the present day portions and the past day portions felt like two very different dramas which created a very striking/jarring feeling while watching that took me awhile to get comfortable with. The modern day portion was like a silly, stereotypical, nothing new here, kind of drama, but with genuine heart and thoughtfulness. I was somewhat disappointed and let-down with aspects of this part of the story and would have liked some things to have been done differently, but it's not unenjoyable. The past day portion had a very human, slice of life, Reply series feel to it, and, for my part, I think it was the better portion. Young Ha Ni is a dynamic character, and her relationship with her father is incredibly endearing. We only received glimpses of the past here and there throughout the drama though, and there were next to none in the latter half, which was really disappointing.

The theme of the drama, the affects of trauma, was probably my favorite thing about the story. I really cared about Ha Ni, both young and adult. But while I think young Ha Ni had a mostly good story arc with a very satisfying conclusion, adult Ha Ni got somewhat jipped in the last few eps. There's a lot of focus early on on the difficulty of adult Ha Ni's life and how much she's given up on herself out of shame and regret, and I think the drama does a really good job of exploring this. There's also the start of her growing and changing and giving herself permission to forgive herself for her past. I was very eager to see more of this in the later half of the series as it's really heartfelt and emotional, but adult Ha Ni's story ends up becoming more about corporate business things/saving the company, and I didn't understand the point. None of it serves the main crux of the drama, and it's honestly quite boring and uninteresting.

As far as the time-travel aspect of the drama goes, it ended up being better than I initially thought while also being somewhat non-existent to the plot most of the time. The only time time-travel is ever mentioned in the story is when the writers need to move a certain part of the story along or when it had been awhile since we'd last thought about the fact that young Ha Ni would need to go back to her timeline eventually so the writers threw in a reminder. It's not a super big or important part of the plot, so if you're looking for some cool timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly stuff, you won't get it. And if I were to sit down and really hammer out the problems with the time-travel/shamanism aspect of the story, I could 100% present you with a list of holes that keep it from being accurate or affective. But while this is a drama featuring time-travel, this isn't a time-travel drama. The writers aren't all that concerned with the mechanics of time-travel or even that much with time-travel itself as long as the device serves the story, so you probably shouldn't let yourself get too hung up on it either.

The last thing I'll say for this drama is that while the character archetype of the male lead has been done far better in other dramas, and this male lead would not be my favorite I've ever seen (I think I actually like the second male lead in this drama better because of the really fascinating trajectory his story and character progression takes), there's still something about the male lead that makes you really like him. He starts out a little annoying, but his thoughtfulness and charm and positivity grow on you. By the end, I was really happy the female lead had someone so kind and thoughtful on her side.

So what would I say to those thinking about watching this? Hello, Me! is a feel good, don't think too hard about it, just have a good time, sort of drama, and if you go into it with that mindset, you'll enjoy yourself. It's not ground-breaking or the most tightly plotted, but it's uplifting, and sometimes that's enough.
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