Netflix’s new young love romance ‘20th Century Girl’ is the real deal. For so many reasons, it is clearly making noise on the Internet and I think it’s perfect for the world to hear it. The film tackles both a bubbly smile-fest and a bittersweet take on growing up. It captures the exhilaration and longing of youth, as well as the high emotions that accompany everything from friendships to first loves.
THE PLOT
It begins as a 17-year-old Bo-ra says goodbye to best friend Yeon-doo as she leaves for the U.S. to undergo a serious heart surgery. During their time apart, Bo-ra is asked to find out all she can about her friend’s crush, Hyun-jin, a popular classmate whom Yeon-doo had a cursory encounter with before she left.
Bo-ra uses creative if sometimes silly tactics to learn about Hyun-jin, diligently e-mailing everything she discovers — from his shoe size to his best friend’s home address — to Yeon-doo. But things take unexpected turns when Bo-ra realizes, for the first time in her life, she is falling hard for a boy: Woon-ho, Hyun-jin’s thoughtful and closest friend. When Yeon-doo finally returns, Bo-ra is hardly prepared for what awaits her.
NOSTALGIA ALL OVER
Set in South Korea during the late ’90s, sentimental rom-com ’20th Century Girl’ offers local audiences a generous help of nostalgia. The movie is complemented by ’90s signposts, including VHS tapes, pagers and public phonebooths, while certain scenes rekindle memories of some of the most iconic K-pop videos and TV dramas of the era, including Deux’s ‘In Summer.’
Aside from that, what we like about this is film is that that they truly bring back the vibe because Bo-ra’s father runs a video rental store, which sets up a comic scene where she’s busted at school with a copy of ‘An Affair,’ an R-rated 1998 erotic drama featuring ‘Squid Game’ star Lee Jung-jae. Brings back memories.
CONCLUSION
The way things end may not be popular nor convincing to some, since the film leaves some of its key characters surprisingly unexplored, despite its two-hour running time. It was a good run, still.
The cinematography was packed with all the jam that’ll bring us closer to the 90s vibe and we’re fed up with some bittersweet memories and for the record, this film made it on Number 2 on Netflix charts.
