Presentation
Korean Title: 날씨가 좋으면 찾아가겠어요
Aired in: 2020 (16 episodes)
Channel: JTBC
Grade: 10/10
Actors: Park Min Young and Seo Kang Joon
For more…
Seo Kang Joon:
– Are You Human Too?
– The Third Charm
– Watcher
– Entourage
Park Min Young:
– What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim
– Her Private Life
– A New Leaf
– Remember
Lee Jae Wook:
– Extraordinary You
– Move to Heaven
– Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol
– Search WWW
Analysis
Synopsis
Mok Hae Won is a young woman, who is distant and cold with her family. She doesn’t have a lot of friends either. Every winter, she goes back to her childhood hometown, where her aunt currently runs a homestay. This winter, she meets again her childhood friend Lim Eun Seob, who runs a bookstore. He has always been in love with Mok Hae Won.
My Opinion (No Spoilers)
Such an original and feel-good drama! I have already said numerous times that JTBC is an amazing channel, when it comes to telling relatable stories. I’ll Come to You When the Weather is Fine is literally one of those dramas, that picture two main characters, who struggle in their life and navigate through its ups and downs (love, pain, disappointment, lies…). The pace of the drama is that of winter, slow, cold and peacefully moving toward spring. Characters melt as the winter ice does and it was really pleasant to be transported in this hometown, where inhabitants all have their own problems.
I loved the sort of cocooning atmosphere that the drama conveyed. Plus, it was aired during winter, making it even more relatable.
If you like romances that bloom slowly, with a bit of tragic, I highly recommend that drama!
Analysis (Spoiler Alert)
The seasons: I think the full title “I’ll Come to You When the Weather is Fine” is quite explicit on that matter. As winter arrives, Mok Hae Won (Park Min Young) goes back to her hometown. She usually takes a break every year and leaves Seoul, where she teaches cello. However, this winter is a bit special, because Hae Won has quit her job at her academy and wants to do some thinking back in her hometown. If I had to describe Mok Hae Won, I would say that she is very cold, distant and lonely. She doesn’t have friends, she doesn’t trust people, she also left her job at the academy because she couldn’t bear others. She is a sort of little misanthropist, but not because she doesn’t like people in general but because she was deceived by them. Even with her family, she rarely speaks and doesn’t have a strong connection with her mother and aunt. She has a tough family background, her mother went to prison because she murdered her dad, so her aunt took care of her, when she was still in high school. She was also deceived at school by her friends, especially her best friend Kim Bo Young (Lim Se Mi), who spread the rumors about her mother being a murderer. For that reason, she has had some rough times at school and cut ties with Bo Young.
All of what she has been through has deeply wounded her, that’s why she decided to take some distance with others. When she comes back to her hometown, she doesn’t intend to make peace with anyone, she just wants to hide herself away from the world and those who hurt her. I believe going back home is a defense mechanism for Hae Won. She hides away in a place where no one can find her and make her vulnerable again. Moreover, since she has not maintained any ties with people from her hometown. That’s why, finding refuge in her aunt’s homestay appears to be the best solution to hide.
Lim Eun Seob (Seo Kang Joon) is also very cold and solitary. He is sometimes associated with the image of a lone wolf, who lives in the mountain and doesn’t approach people. Indeed, when he was young, Eun Seob was living with his dad in the forest after his mother abandoned them. Shortly after, his father left too and he had to spend some time up there alone. He was adopted by another family, but he never recovered from the abandon and the memories of his mother leaving still haunts him. He has thus become very introverted and shy, not sharing his problems with anyone and spending time in the mountain when need be. He also happened to be the talk of the time at some point because of his past, but never showed how vulnerable it left him. Moreover, some years ago, Eun Seob disappeared for an entire year without telling anything to anyone. When the drama starts, we still don’t know where and why he left. We then discover that his mother was dying and he spent her last moments with her.
Another important detail is that Eun Seob’s only biological relative is convinced that, like his father, he is not meant to live with the rest of the world. He believes that some people are supposed to live alone and Eun Seob belongs to that category (We all know it’s false though!).
Eun Seob is also very secretive and never told Mok Hae Won that he had a crush on her during high school. He still has feelings for her but doesn’t show them.
So, when winter starts at the beginning of the drama, we have these two wounded, lonely, cold and secretive characters. They are as cold as winter is harsh. However, a lot happens during these approximate 4 months, until spring. Winter becomes actually the season during which Hae Won and Eun Seob meet again and find out that they have in reality a lot in common. Because they share the same difficult background, they manage to create a connection. Moreover, Eun Seob’s feelings for Hae Won pushes him to get closer to her. I loved seeing how their romance evolves in the drama. At first they are like two people meeting awkwardly and reminiscing of their youth. Then little by little, they start caring for each other (Hae Won works in Eun Seob’s bookstore). This mutual attention is showed in details, like Eun Seob putting lights on the road to Hae Won’s house. They even worry more and more (when Eun Seob goes in the woods alone). Hae Won also finds out Eun Seob’s long-lasting feelings for her thanks to objects of the past (the craft they did in high school, Eun Seob’s blog…). They open up and literally warm up to one another. Their love bloom throughout winter until they realize in spring that they don’t want to be alone again and want to be together.
The final scene, when Hae Won decides not to go back to Seoul and stay with her love is really heart-warming. It was so satisfying to see that these two characters could finally be happy after all they had been through.
The romance is thus going from cold to passionate and Mok Hae Won literally came to Eun Seob (in his heart I mean, romantically) when the weather was fine!
The romance for the other characters also takes place: Lee Jang Woo (Lee Jae Wook) and Ji Eun Sil (Yang Hye Ji) for instance but also the younger ones with Eun Seob’s sister or the older ones (Hae Won’s aunt).
I liked how they centered their stories on different characters from different generations, depicting romance at differentstages and ages. I was really rooting for all of them!
Secrets all around: While watching the drama, I was really moved by the seriously tragic background that all characters have. I especially realized that most characters were suffering because of lies and misunderstandings. We could really measure the consequences that actions and lies have on family and see how they can destroy them.
There are two main mysteries in that drama that we uncover little by little. First, there is Eun Seob’s past and his disappearance, while he was in high school. In that matter, like I said it is related to his biological mother. The second mystery deals with Hae Won’s past. What we learn from the very beginning is that her mother is in prison and her aunt is taking care of her. My first reaction when I saw the aunt was to find out why she was constantly wearing sunglasses. I didn’t understand at first and it seemed weird to wear them even during the night. The drama answered my questions after by explaining everything that happened in the past.
When she was still little, Hae Won was living with her mother and father. However, her father was an alcoholic and abused her mother, without her knowing. Hae Won’s mother and aunt were really close in the past, so her aunt would visit her quite often. She suspected her sister was being beaten up because she would always find bruises on her. Plus, to hide the bruises, Hae Won’s mother would wear sunglasses (it’s a sister thing, I guess!). One day, while Hae Won’s mother was being abused, her sister entered the room and saw her brother-in-law in the act. She tried to stop him, push him away and took her sister. However, he got mad and tried to beat both of them. Trying to defend herself, Hae Won’s mother pushed him in the stairs. But, he didn’t die at the moment. Both tried to run away, they took the car keys and jumped in the car. Hae Won’s aunt was behind the steel and as she was preparing to drive, Hae Won’s father jumped out of nowhere, with a golf bat and started beating the car. Terrified, Hae Won’s aunt pressed unfortunately the accelerator, killing him.
After the accident, Hae Won’s mother decided to take the blame; protecting her sister (she was abused so she could reduce her sentence, but had it been her sister, she would have spent her life in jail). Hae Won’s mother had to spend 7 years in jail and made her sister promise that she would not tell anyone and take care of her daughter (I seriously would’ve done the same thing, had I been Hae Won’s mother).
Even though what happened seems to be the most rational solution in that mess, this lie weighted heavily on everyone. Mok Hae Won was destroyed because, one her father was dead and two it was her mother who murdered him. Her aunt quit her career as a writer and hid away from the rest of the world, punishing herself for her sins (she wears sunglasses because she is slowly becoming blind; she doesn’t want to be treated because she considers it her punishment for not paying for what she did). She spent many years living in pain, in lie, in apprehension and anxiety. Hae Won’s mother went to jail.
I felt really bad when I discovered the back story. The tragedy made it even more unfair, because the living had to pay for the bad deeds of the dead. The drama highlighted in a very clever way domestic abuse. In my opinion, it reflected perfectly the unfairness sometimes of the system that makes some people pay, when they are victims in the first place. It also clearly exposed the terrible consequences such an accident can have on the lives of all the people involved with the rumors, the rejection…
But not only in Hae Won’s family, secrets are actually everywhere in that town. They are not necessarily as tragic as Hae Won’s father’s death but they still play he big role in the intrigue. For instance, the reason behind Bo Young and Hae Won’s estrangement. Bo Young was in love with Eun Seob in high school. She thought that Hae Won was trying to steal him away so she unconsciously avenged herself by revealing Hae Won’s past.
When the Weather is Fine is an excellent representation of how hurtful lies and words in general can be to people. It shows the toughness of social human ties on one side, but also the perpetual possibility to reconnect, even when we think it is not possible. Truth and communication are the best tools in that matter to make peace and move on. Proof lies with Hae Won and Bo Young clearing their misunderstandings, Hae Won’s aunt telling the truth about the past, and other characters confessing their wrongs.
From that point of view, the drama illustrates the benefits of truth in order to clear misunderstandings opposite to the deadly consequences of lies.
If we align the plot with the seasons, we can see that winter was a period of miscommunication and distance between all characters. Yet, the season was rich in events and revelations, so that characters can leave the harshness of winter and their past behind to start anew.
Same with family ties who seemed broken at the beginning. Hae Won and Eun Seob’s family appeared at the end of the drama more solid and connected, describing hope that ties might be fixed with time.
Poetry and book club: I’ll finish that review with the poetry that emphasizes the romance in the drama. Eun Seob has a bookstore and with some friends they have formed a book club. Physically speaking, the bookstore represents the refuge, in which Hae Won’s and Eun Seob’s love can grow without others intervening. It is a sort of shelter (individually but also together). Emotionally speaking, the books’ stories and the poetry enable all characters to express somehow their feelings and thoughts and debate on several subjects. Through the analysis of these topics, they can talk about what they really feel without being prejudiced.
The book club is also a melting pot of many different people, which enriches the stories and the debates, giving a large overview of human feelings. I loved the cocooning ambiance that came from this place and characters were very sympathetic. If you look closely you will find visual details related to warmth (brown color, coffee, blankets, big boots, a grill and a boiler…) emphasizing the ambiance.
Books enabling the expression of feelings: Finally, let’s talk about the blog that Eun Seob has with Irene as Hae Won. I really loved seeing the inputs of his blog at the end of each episode, giving me the impression that Eun Seob was writing his own book (clever for someone who runs a bookstore) about his own story, life and romance. Books are by the way everywhere and enable the expression of feelings with Eun Seob’s blog but also Hae Won’s aunt’s book, the Maze of Sisterhood, revealing the truth about her life.
P.S.: Am I the only one who adored the supporting love stories Jang Woo and Eun Sil and Eun Seob’s sister’s?
Once Upon a Drama 