只有形式的罗曼史

金作家在最后说：“即使掺杂了其它颜色，原本的色彩并不会消失，只是看起来像不同的颜色，但其中有我们所知道的原来的色彩。“

我很喜欢这部电影，它有趣，温和，戏谑着爱情的悲伤与遗憾，在艳俗的世界里留下了一抹蓝色，这蓝色拯救了我们。

爱情的开始，那些吸引有可能会形成错觉。有时候，我们在一起，却不能欢欣同步。聂鲁达却说过：冬天的枝干，清晰、勇敢、坚强。是吗？

”被拒绝的人背影都差不多“

是的

很喜欢他们的演技，演员不论从小到大都非常松弛和完整，不管是柳承龙老师的开局一滴泪还是其他几位“老”前辈的张力，还是剧中儿子“失恋”后的爆发和他暧昧对象在逃避时稍作保留的处理都非常有韵味，我最惊讶的是武镇圣剧中在参加完父亲葬礼返校后找老师那种的欲言又止的臃肿状态是怎么达到的，真的赋予了那个场景更多的深度，也贴合了“我即是伤痛”的这个角色。

再回到故事本身，很多人会觉得作品想表达的太多，或者不能理解为什么要用“同志”作为主线。在我看来这个故事的主题反倒是十分明确：喜欢与被喜欢的故事。女导演非常细腻地用几段过去和现在的感情关系来表达喜欢和不喜欢的故事，用“同志”的感情来加大了作品的张力以及“试图”拔高作品内涵，这个主线条的选择有利有弊，坏处就在于会让很多人不自觉的把注意力放到了“同志”这个议题上。如果观众能将眼光转变到“不论男女，两个人之间喜欢和被喜欢所带来的一系列的感受”上，可能更能接受到故事表达的内涵，每一条感情线都很完整细腻却又各不相同，也讲述了不同的年龄段不同的社会关系不同的性别在喜欢和被喜欢这件事情上所产生的化学反应和不断成长的故事。

并没有用太多的大起大落来描述，是一部很轻松但是同样温情的作品。

Do not be fooled by the title: Perhaps Love is not your typical rom-com. In fact, it is not a rom-com at all. This emotionally honest, amusing screwball comedy offers us different angles on what love is and what it can be, more in line with the Greek differentiations of the concept.

The most interesting part of Perhaps Love – and what holds the film together – are the tangled relationships between its many characters and their subplots. Multiple gears are in motion here. Kim Hyun (Ryu Seung-ryong) is a one-time best-selling author and university lecturer whose life is a borderline train wreck. His spendthrift wife and daughter are abroad, in whose absence he becomes increasingly emotionally reliant on his ex-wife Mi-ae (Oh Na-ra), who is secretly dating Kim’s friend and publisher Soon-mo (Kim Hee-won). At the same time, he struggles to connect with his teenage son Sung-kyung (Sung Yu-bin), who gets dumped by his pregnant girlfriend and starts fantasising about his married neighbour Jung-won (Lee Yoo-young).

On top of all of this, we have Yu-jin (Mu Jin-seong), a talented student of Kim who offers his teacher both the draft of his novel and his love. Stuck for seven years in writer’s block, Kim finds it harder by the day to skate by on the success of his past best-selling novel that’s fading from memory. When an impending debt further threatens what little stability he has left in his life, he decides to make Yu-jin his protégé and finish the novel together as well as confront his casual homophobia, despite quite literally running away from Yu-jin earlier.

The cast’s brilliant performances make this multi-storyline affair a relatively breezy watch. At the heart of the story’s thread is Kim Hyun, played by Ryu Seung-ryong (Kingdom, Extreme Job) who became the inaugural Best from the East honoree at the recent New York Asian Film Festival, where the film was also in competition. Ryu infuses Kim with warmth and humour that makes the character oddly charming. Equally splendid is Oh Na-ra (TV series My Mister) as the ex-wife Mi-ae, whose scenes with Ryu elicit the most laughter throughout the film.

Supported by Kim Tae-gyeong’s editing and precise comic timing – something that the Korean screen industry is yet to be eclipsed by anyone else – the actress-turned-director Cho Eun-ji offers a decent amount of playful fun in the film’s 113-minute running time. Known mostly for her acting roles in crime thrillers such as The Villainess and Confession of Murder, Cho’s debut direction was recognised with the Best New Director prize at the Baeksang Arts Award in April.

And that is a well-deserved honour, for first-timer Kim Na-deul’s script could certainly have been treated worse in less deft hands. The story proves emotionally honest in its portrayal of the different sides, sorrows, and joys of love, especially the poignant relationship between Kim and Yu-jin (look out for a Days of Being Wild reference, Wong Kar-wai fans!). However, the dramatisation of Kim’s screenplay veers off course in certain parts. In one climax scene of calamitous farce that sees nearly all characters together, rote comedy prevails over relatable drama and ends up exerting a distancing effect.

A chief example of such disengagement is the character of Jung-won the neighbour and her relationship with Kim’s son Sung-kyung. While Sung-kyung’s growing pains play a crucial role and are emotionally relatable for the audience, Jung-won’s existence seems entirely in service to his character. Accompanying him to an internet café to play video games and to sing karaoke after spontaneously running into him on the street, Lee Yoo-young’s character is regrettably pigeonholed as a manic pixie dream girl from the outset.

“You’re a writer. You got to have an interest in relationships”, says Kim to Yu-jin, writer to writer. Director Cho Eun-ji and writer Kim Na-deul, however, would do well to remember that – in order to have interesting relationships, you first need to craft well-conceived, well-rounded characters.

Originally published on View of the Arts.