‘Crash Course in Romance’ series review: Love in the time of academic pressure, competition, and parental trauma

A still from ‘Crash Course in Romance’ 
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

K-Drama Crash Course in Romance, unlike its English title, isn’t just a crash course in ‘romance’ and nor is it a romantic comedy. The 16-episode K-Drama starts off as a seemingly quirky romance between a banchan (side dish) store owner and former handball player Nam Haeng-Seon (Jeon Do-Yeon), and celebrity Math instructor – Yes, that is in fact a big deal – Choi Chi-Yeol (Jung Kyung-Ho). After her sister walks out on the family leaving behind her young daughter, Haeng Soon takes her under her wing, and also has to care for her brother Jae-Woo(Oh Eui-Sik) who is on the autism spectrum.

The couple’s initial run-ins, banter and misunderstandings are a breeze, more so because they are refreshing characters in their early forties. With excellent actors like Do-Yeon and Kyung-Ho, there’s never a dip in energy and it almost seems like the actors are trying to outdo each other. When they’re pitch perfect and strike all the right chords when it comes to the emotional scenes, there’s no dearth of some sweet, sparkling chemistry either.

Their romance, however, as initially mentioned, isn’t the sole focus of the K-Drama. There are competitive mothers, the pressure of high school academics, jealous classmates, parental trauma, scheming professional rivals, scandals by the dozen, AND a murderous psychopath on the loose. And not all of this always comes together cohesively.

Haeng-Seon’s shop is located near an academic district, filled with tutoring academies that high school students and their parents make a beeline for, in droves. It’s a world where mothers queue up in front of The Pride academy not just to register their kids for Chi-Yeol’s math classes, but to also get them a seat right in front of the class. Writer Yang Hee-Seung does a fine job setting up this world for audiences, depicting the extent of the academic pressure and system that students who are on the cusp of getting into universities, and their parents are trying to navigate.

The mothers in particular have risen up to this challenge, often giving it their despicable best in this war for college entrance exams. A workaholic attorney Jang Seo-Jin (Jang Young-Nam) who has driven her first son to an academic pressure-induced breakdown, is now solely focused on ensuring her second son Lee Sun-Jae (Lee Chae-Min) doesn’t back down. There’s also a social media high school academics mom-influencer Su-Hee (Kim Sun-Young) who is obsessed with her daughter’s studies and is seemingly oblivious to her mental health struggles as well as her cheating husband.

Haeng-Seon soon realises that she needs to step up for her niece, Nam He-Yi (Roh Yoon-Seo) and struggles to fit into this world of competition and scheming. She, however, dons the role of a parent who lets He-Yi work at her own pace and keeps her best interests at heart, something that’s largely missing from the other mothers on the show. The trauma that parents like Seo-Jin and Su-Hee knowingly and unknowingly inflicted on their children, who are already struggling under the weight of a flawed academic system is what a large part of the show touches upon, and yet never actually manages to address in its entirety. Despite this parental pressure and subsequent trauma even being revealed as the motive for murder later in the show, there’s hardly any time spent on even a conversation between the mothers and their children about this.

The show’s several subplots ultimately are its biggest drawback. There is too much time spent on a spate of murders and despite this plot point being stretched till the end, there’s a lazily written conclusion to attempt to tie up all the loose ends. The reappearance of a family member and the sudden inclusion of a romance between two secondary characters who work together could have altogether been avoided in favour of more screen time for the lead couple, or He-Yi and her school buddies. Yoon-Seo and Chae-Min deliver measured, sincere performances as He-Yi and Sun-Jae and even Lee Min-Jae, who plays their classmate Geon-Hu shines in his small role.

As it attempts to touch upon the pressures of high school academics alongside a blossoming romance, there are constant tonal jumps in the show, especially during its latter half and this makes the writing often come off as chaotic and cluttered. Amidst the clutter however, the evolution of the relationship between the leads, the high school friendships, and the lone parental relationship that seems to work (Haeng-Seon and He-yi) redeem the show, and almost make up for the chaos.

Without these genre jumps, Crash Course in Romance, which has emerged as a big-rating hit among the releases this year, would have made for the perfect watch. But as is, the warmth of its leads and the attempt at exploring a dark side to education makes it compelling nevertheless.

Crash Course in Romance is now streaming on Netflix