Bullet Point Review: At a Distance, Spring is Green

Spoilers Ahead…

• Early episodes of At a Distance, Spring is Green falls very much along the lines of Cheese in the Trap, with a rich, popular student hiding his true self behind a façade of generosity and his sudden interest in a sullen but misunderstood senior, charging the story forward. Apart from the switch in the seniority, (this time it’s the hoobae who shows interest in the sunbae), the senior, Nam Soo Hyun (Bae In Hyuk) happens to be male, and a queer love line from the original webtoon (which the drama is based on) is converted into a bromance. While this change is understandable within the social context — South Korea is still largely a conservative country and airing a queer romance drama on television wouldn’t be welcomed by many — in terms of the screenplay, this change doesn’t land well.
  The drama spends so much time developing Yeo Jun (a fantastic Park Ji Hoon) and Soo Hyun’s relationship, angling towards a queer relationship, only to drop it immediately and have Yeo Jun’s interest be switched towards another senior, a female, Kim So Bin (Kang Min Ah is alright, but doesn’t have much to do after the initial episodes). This makes all the subsequent proceedings between the couple hard to buy, as we haven’t seen them interact as much. At the same time, the drama is saddled with uninteresting side characters, underdeveloped interactions between characters, unexplained subplots, and systematically oscillates between cute and serious, making it a disconcerting watch.

• The plot revolves around Yeo Jun, Soo Hyun and So Bin and their emotional baggages. Yeo Jun is a victim of domestic abuse, and seeks love and attention from everyone, even if it is put on. So Bin, likewise, comes from a broken home and has an estranged relationship with her mother and Soo Hyun is dirt poor, often working multiple part-time jobs, to stay afloat.
• I liked that Soo Hyun’s poverty is not treated as a simple misfortune, but trauma that can seriously affect one’s mental and physical health. As the first born, Soo Hyun is under immense pressure to provide for his family, as well as keep up his scores to maintain his scholarship. He logs in his daily expenditure, he eats low-priced meals, and for a short period of time, is homeless as well. The scene where he quietly takes in the size and beauty of Yeo Jun’s bathroom and compares it to his own, speaks volumes and his arguments with Yeo Jun over money are explored quite well.
  I just wish this complexity, sensitivity and depth was extended to Yeo Jun and So Bin too. While Yeo Jun’s (heart breaking) backstory and his relationship with his parents unfolds skilfully without much elaboration, with So Bin, his persona transforms into a ‘bad boy with a dark past’ (traumatic instances from his childhood are treated as romantic punchlines) without any of the subtlety presented earlier. And So Bin’s backstory is introduced at random and forgotten about later.
• After a point, there is simply too much going on and nothing of consequence. The whole bit with the group project and the bullies drags on for far too long. There is a very random incident with a molka. So Bin’s unfair dismissal by Professor Song (Cha Chung Hwa) doesn’t advance the plot nor her character.
  All these side quests just keeps us away from Yeo Jun and Soo Hyun. It doesn’t allow the drama to develop and flesh out their friendship, as they learn to understand and empathise with each other’s situations and eventually help each other out. That for me, was the most interesting portion to watch. Everything else was just meh.