Dream House (2022)

Unexpectedly good

So...as of now, there is no eng sub and no quality trailer on youtube for this drama. I was looking for a 40-ep filler...and it was pretty good (to be clear, the version I watched has 39 eps total).
Unique, quality points of this drama:
- It is a unique story and set up (loyal and righteous small business owner in debt ML and his little family of friends; righteous silver-spoon acclaimed FL and her helicopter mom; ML and FL interact with different customers of different backgrounds)
- The character design was soooo good. In a basic drama, we have a classic "good guy" and "bad guy" and/or "good guy turned bad because of a series of events". This good vs bad is based on a basic viewpoint of what is moral and acceptable to society (tell the truth, do good for yourself and others, etc.) and what is not (stealing, cheating, manipulating, etc.). But this drama managed to create characters all along the spectrum, as it is in real life (people are all over the place, lets be real). You have lifelong friends that steal money, backstabbers that remain loyal for old times' sake. What a mess; but it keeps it exciting. All of the actions of each character make sense (and the lead and supporting actors are able to portray these oddly shaped morales for these unique characters).
- You would expect character development to be very strong over 39 eps to keep the story going...but there wasn't too much development. You can see the minor change in the last couple episodes, but it wasn't the focus. I think the focus was on different fully developed characters interacting with each other with pros and cons slowly rubbing off on each other.
- ML is a basic broke and loyal guy but he's not pitiful. He's smart enough to stay true to what he believes in, but loyal enough to bend backwards to help others. Minor thing I appreciate: while he is in debt, there is a lack of the basic loan shark that hunts him down. It seems that every story writes in a loan shark scene when explaining how broke someone is, but ML would be too smart to take a loan from a loan shark or anything sketchy like that.
- FL is a rich kid with talents, but seems like people care more about her background than her works. But her works aren't necessarily 100% spot-on the client
- The chemistry is so good, acting is on point
- Subtle witty jokes scattered throughout drama, otherwise it's just all drama #tea

What I didn't like:
- Some of these characters that have twisted morales are just uncomfortable to watch (for example swindling your own friend) and ML always gets taken advantage of...this doesn't really change...so if you have strong vigilante-like personality, then you'll be extremely frustrated
- You can't really tell what age they are...these are all good actors, but...real life age and drama age...you can only imagine so much. And I don't think they really spell it out for you either, but once in a while there are some lines that infer ages you may not have expected. Age isn't always important, but it's nice to have context (the more background, the better). It doesn't interfere with the storyline though.
- the ending...it was like another episode ended...nothing special except for the words "the end". But it's a happy ending. I really feel like an extra 2 or so eps could've wrapped up some things. But I wouldn't say ending was unsatisfying...it just wasn't grand. It's so odd because the pacing throughout was good...why couldn't they just also have a nicely-wrapped-with-a-bow ending? Maybe it's an ode to "...life goes on..."

Wow this is a very long review. Thanks for reading through.

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