[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Man In My House" Episode 5

By William Schwartz on 2016/11/07 at 16:05 PST

Right away the great mystery behind Nan-gil's motivation is fully cleared up- and it ends up being really, really corny. Weirder than that it's actually kind of oddly consistent. Considering how outspoken Nan-gil has been around Na-ri it initially seems completely inconsistent that he's maintained a comical and borderline creepy lifelong obsession with Na-ri. Yet it does make sense because of course Nan-gil has never seen Na-ri as a person but as a metaphorical representation of the family Nan-gil could have if he's a good little boy.

Meanwhile Na-ri and Deok-bong don't have a clue what's going on in Nan-gil's head, and that only makes their preposterous hypothesizing all the funnier. It's also amusing how Na-ri and Deok-bong actually have a lot in common personality-wise, and this is what makes them not really work as a couple at all. They encourage behavior in each other that, while not exactly bad, is clearly not ideal and is not at all condusive to emotional growth.

While Deok-bong's generally crummy attitude was fairly obvious last episode, Na-ri's similarities are becoming more obvious the more background information we get. Nan-gil swooped in and improbably saved the day precisely because Na-ri was not paying close enough attention to her mother or the greater family situation to do so herself. And even now Na-ri is far more obsessed with Deok-bong's obvious eccentricities than those of the other characters she runs into.

Where this leaves us is Na-ri finally making an essential revelation about this situation that doesn't go into silly daydream fantasies and...well, I don't want to ruin it, but the final scene is genuinely sweet. It's nice to see that even without knowing the absolute full story, Na-ri can still recognize genuine emotions in other people. That's an important step up from her falling further to Deok-bong's generally cynical level.

Another fun irony is how the generally absurd situation with Nan-gil is a fairly effective distraction from the far more traditionally annoying plot involving Na-ri's ex-boyfriend and traitorous co-worker. Those two are just silly as always. Yeo-joo seems to want attention more than she does anything emotionally useful. And Dong-jin isn't much better. His half-hearted measures to get back to Na-ri are completely uninspiring, and those too serve as a useful argument for why Nan-gil's sincerity matters so much. Nan-gil is pretty much the only character in "The Man In My House" who actually wants something, however silly that goal may be.

Review by William Schwartz

"The Man In My House" is directed by Kim Jung-min-XII, written by Kim Eun-jeong, and features Soo Ae, Kim Young-kwang, Lee Soo-hyuk, Jo Bo-ah, Kim Ji-hoon-I and Kim Mi-sook.

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