Minha Namorada Mandona (2019)

Competent and comfortable

This is a pretty stock standard romcom, with two leads who happen to have disabilities of different sorts. The ML's psychological trauma is perhaps treated a bit superficially, but then again, this is a movie, with only 100 minutes to tell its story. The strength of the Drama for me was in its matter-of-fact handling of the FL's physical disability. It neither glamourised/romanticised it, nor ignored it. It was simply there, an inescapable part of who she was, but not the defining characteristic of her existence. The down-to-earth acceptance of her by the ML's friends was great to see too. Given that Korea, like many cultures, is VERY ableist, that tolerance and acceptance may have been part of the "message" of the film, but it was delivered without sermonising of any sort, either explicit or implicit. Overall, an enjoyable timepass, better than I expected from a film I decided to watch simply because it had the very lovely Lee Elijah as lead. :)

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I was really excited to see this movie because it revolves around a college-aged girl who has a disability (in a wheelchair), which is a refreshingly inclusive story, not often seen in the fiction world.

The story was decent, but not breathtaking. It was a nice story, but not exceptionally told. There was nothing necessarily wrong with it, but it would have been made that much better if the character's back stories had more depth (they're alluded to, but never really explained) and the side characters were given more distinguishing character and development.

The music was not memorable, but not unpleasant either.

The actors were well selected, but nothing exceptional. They fit their roles well and played their characters sufficiently.

I'm not sure if I'll ever rewatch it, but I liked it enough to perhaps watch again if someone really wanted to watch it together.

Altogether, what made this drama likable was the pleasant romance between the two MCs. Their romance was a tad slow and rather surface-level in depth, but pleasant nonetheless. The ending was nice too.

What brings this story down is the lack of in-depth substance to the story. What brings this story up is that it stars a minority in society and tells their story pleasantly, however brief and general. It also had some comedic moments, which I always appreciate.

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