Netflix’s latest, 20th Century Girl is deceptive. The film has all the shades of a sweet, emotional romantic comedy set in a high school where one loyal girl wants her close friend to end up with the boy of her dreams. Of course, needless to say, the girl herself falls in love with the boy and bittersweet confusion ensues. And then, in a rather diabolic sweeping manner, all that joy is suddenly crushed in a way that’s eerily reminiscent of Twenty Five-Twenty One (those wounds will never heal), but what hurts here, is that it doesn’t quite have the same impact. You just come away feeling slightly let down.
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Set in the 90s, Kim Joo-yung’s Na Bo-ra and Roh Yoon-seo’s Yeon-du play the two close friends in question. Before Yeon-du heads to the US for a heart surgery, she confides in Na Bo-ra about the new boy she is in love with, whose name she believes is Baek Hyun-jin (Park Jung-woo). Na Bo-ra promises to investigate the boy thoroughly, only to fall in love with his best friend, Poong Woon-ho (Byeon Woo-seok). There are the actual wholesome and enjoyable moments of the film—the scenes of high school activities like debating clubs, sneaky drunken escapades, the recollections of high school crushes, and the innocent first dates. The film emphasises on the purity of teenage love, without leaning into any toxic traits. None of the kids are a bad lot — they actually seem like teenagers, with their own set of perplexing concerns, mainly concerning exams and crushes.
However, as luck would have it, Yeon-du is actually in love with Woon-ho, leading to events a la Mujhse Dosti Karoge, where Bo-ra plays every quintessential Bollywood sacrificial heroine and decides to give up her crush for Yeon-du. But friendship and sisterhood is too strong and Bo-ra, Woon-ho have a sweet reunion at the train station before he leaves the country. Till here, the film is charming and wholesome.
What follows is a diabolic twist—like someone just viciously threw water at you, just as you were enjoying a warm and comfortable nap. We all wanted to see the happy ending and a romantic reunion, but clearly that was not the idea behind the conclusion, and you’re meant to draw your own conclusion.
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While I’m all for the good pain and tears in films and shows, moments in this film felt like I was being deliberately prodded to sob, even though I was just a little sad, not to mention rather perplexed. It seemed like a forced reminder of Twenty Five Twenty One, a show that followed a similar path of first love, only to see the lead couple not reunite at the end, except that was a story that was filled with far more subtlety, nuance, which is probably why the ending hurt a lot more.
Nevertheless the last few moments of the film were a reminder of why it had been enjoyable in the first place. An adult Bo-ra watches an old video of Woon-ho, his little collection of clips that feature her as well. That had an emotional punch, more of an impact that Bo-ra’s scene with his younger brother. Even if it was supposed to have an unhappy ending, the conclusion could have been much tighter, with a lot more subtlety and less heavy exposition—which somehow ruined the effect the film intended to have.
20th Century Girl isn’t a bad film by any means, even if the last 30 minutes were rather disappointing. It had all the rushes of the 90’s, the close friendships, the thrills and fears of first love, and wholesomeness one would want to see depicted in televised high schools (We’re the generation that had Gossip Girl, The OC, One Tree Hill and now Euphoria). The acting is impeccable, and Joo-yung brings out all the complexities of Bo-ra and her little quirks—like Woon-ho, we love them too.
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Ironically, most of us turn to Korean shows and films when we look for comfort, so it feels rather unsettling when we don’t see the happy ending that we want. Sigh, whatever works for good storytelling.
