It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (Review)
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed K-Dramas on Netflix in 2020. It’s also one of the favorites among K-Drama fans. The show, while generally following a typical romcom plot, is heavily focused on mental health, and many of the characters featured in the show suffer from mental disorders.
The plot focuses on three leads: Moon Gang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun), a caregiver at OK Psychiatric Hospital in fictional Seongjin City, his autistic brother and artist, Moon Sang-tae (Oh Jung-se), and Gang-tae’s love interest, Ko Moon-young (Seo Yea-ji), a person with antisocial personality disorder and author of children’s books. They are all connected because of the shared past and the trauma they suffered in their childhoods, although they would learn that in the course of the show.
Visually, the show is stunning. It is arranged around Moon-young books and stories, and illustrations from those books come to life in animations featured in the show. Moon-young lives in a house or “castle” resembling a Victorian mansion and set designers indeed did a masterful job to make it interesting and captivating. The sets, animations, and visuals seem to be inspired by Tom Burton’s movies, or similar style (including sequence with stop motion animation which opens the series). The soundtrack (especially haunting songs performed by Janet Suhh) and score (composed by the trio of composers: Kim Kyung Hee, Nam Hye Seung, Park Sang Hee) very much follow a similar fairy-tale style, offering an experience consistent with overall direction of the show, and providing a unique atmosphere. Also, the costume design is superb, especially jaw dropping costumes which Moon-young is wearing in the show (here kudos to Seo Yea-ji, who was able to make those outfits a part of her character’s personality and pulled off a fantastic look).
Oh Jung-se’s portrayal of an autistic Moon Sang-tae is a highlight of the show. It had to be a result of thorough study: his gestures and mannerisms are very authentic throughout the show, at the same time he delivered a touching and moving performance.
Casting Seo Yea-ji as Ko Moon-young was a perfect choice: she is not your typical K-Drama romcom female lead, playing an independent and opinionated, but also impulsive woman, dominating over male characters in the show, something we rarely see in K-Dramas. Her unique voice only adds a hint of mystery to this performance. Hopefully recent controversies surrounding Seo Yea-ji will not cause her disappearance from K-Dramas, since she is a unique personality in Korean TV.
The creators of the show very cleverly combined the stories by Ko Moon-young with events of the show, and most of the episodes feature one of the patients of the OK Psychiatric Hospital bringing a focus to a particular mental disorder. In reality, these children’s books were written by Jo Yong and illustrated by Jamsan, and were published in Korea in tie-in with the show.
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay is one of the most unique K-Drama romcoms. The fairy-tale atmosphere and stunning visuals are its memorable features. In addition, the characters in the show are compelling and break typical K-Drama stereotypes.
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay on Wikipedia and MyDramaList
