We Are All Trying Here: Episodes 1-2
by quirkycase
In We Are All Trying Here, we meet a host of characters who are struggling to navigate work and life in their own ways. At the center is our aspiring filmmaker has been fighting an uphill battle for 20 years to prove his worth. He crosses paths with an apathetic producer who understands his pain and admires his refusal to give up. Their spark of connection amidst a sea of people making them feel worthless could be what they need to find hope again.
EPISODES 1-2
As a big fan of writer Park Hae-young’s prior works My Ajusshi and My Liberation Notes, this has been one of my most highly anticipated dramas. No one does struggling humans coming together for solace and healing like this writer, and based on the premiere episodes, it looks like we’re in for another emotional rollercoaster here.
What I find particularly interesting about this drama is the dynamics around the central character HWANG DONG-MAN (Gu Kyo-hwan), an aspiring film director in his 40s who’s struggling to make ends meet. Dong-man is lonely, scared, and exhausted after decades of getting no closer to his dream. While all his peers in “The Eight Club” are now established directors and producers, Dong-man is the lone straggler who hasn’t managed to debut a film yet. He’s both pitied and resented by his “friends” for being a downer and a bit of an embarrassment.
It’s not Dong-man’s failure itself that makes him pitiful, but how incredibly dismissed he is by everyone around him. When he speaks, people either outright ignore him or grimace like he’s unworthy of their attention. And that, in turn, makes Dong-man vie for that attention even harder by being more abrasive. It’s hard to watch.
Most of his so-called friends barely tolerate his presence and don’t do much to hide that from him. LEE JOON-HWAN (Shim Hee-seop) is the only one who is a true friend and enjoys his company. On the opposite end of the spectrum is frenemy PARK KYUNG-SE (Oh Jung-se) who hates Dong-man and his stupid face, finding everything he does infuriating. It even leads him to come up with a movie idea wherein a government department is founded to keep the peace by offing citizens who are so stress-inducing as to endanger those around them, lol.
Rather than having a direct conversation with Dong-man, they all (aside from Joon-hwan) badmouth him every chance they get – the whole industry seems to hate him. This pettiness and kicking of someone when they’re down angers producer BYUN EUN-AH (Go Yoon-jung). She watches everyone around her with disgust, disillusioned to the point of apathy. She was once known for her scathing yet insightful script critiques, but she’s lately lost her verve.
Some of that is due to ruthless film exec CHOI DONG-HYUN (Choi Won-young) whose jealously over Eun-ah’s skills leads him to berate her openly in front of all the other employees. The stress from her increasing feelings of hopelessness and simmering rage gives Eun-ah frequent nosebleeds. Her doctor encourages her to use this emotion-tracking watch to find patterns they can target for treatment. (Coincidentally, Dong-man is also trying out this experimental watch.)
While the reserved, apathetic Eun-ah and eccentric, boisterous Dong-man come off as complete opposites, they share a similar pain and helplessness. We only get a few short conversations between them in these two episodes, but those conversations are meaningful and honest. Eun-ah truly listens when Dong-man talks, and her quiet yet intense attention tones down his need to act out to prove he exists.
Dong-man is a weird dude, and it’s clear most people don’t know what to do with him. He spends half these episodes wearing a completely unnecessary neck brace and arm cast as a symbol of his internal pain needing to be healed. He tells Eun-ah that monologuing gives him energy and often screams his own name from the roof if he has no one to talk to. Rather than write him off as an oddity, Eun-ah is intrigued and asks if she can read his screenplay. Her interest stuns the man speechless, for once.
When he loses a bid for funding for his project yet again and watches Kyung-se celebrate his new subpar (according to Dong-man) film, Dong-man can’t take much more. Then, Dong-hyun kicks him while he’s down. He cruelly calls Dong-man into his office after hearing he gave Eun-ah his screenplay and orders her to pick it apart in front of him.
Eun-ah is incredibly uncomfortable but does share her honest criticisms while he Dong-man listens quietly with a pasted smile on his face. Having made his point, Dong-hyun tells Dong-man to give up – he couldn’t make it these past 20 years and never will. It’s humiliating, but Dong-hyun has the gall to frame it as a kindness. All these years, everyone has been thinking it but didn’t have the guts to say it to Dong-man’s face.
And indeed, most of Dong-man’s friend group is relieved someone told him to give it up. When Eun-ah overhears them eagerly badmouthing him again, asking why he can’t learn to stay quiet, she can’t hold back anymore. Understanding him better than his so-called friends, Eun-ah asks how he’s supposed to stay silent when he’s terrified.
But it’s clear his peers don’t care to understand him. They’re sick of Dong-man hanging around and inconveniencing them, so instead of trying to help a friend in crisis, they kick him out of the group. GO HYE-JIN (Kang Mal-geum), who is married to Kyung-se and owns the bar the group hangs at, sits Dong-man down and tells him he’s no longer welcome as a friend. She even goes so far as to put a sign on the door barring him from entry.
While this was handled very poorly, in all fairness, Dong-man is A LOT. He can be obnoxious and his bitterness can make him mean. He constantly bemoans others’, including his friends’, successes; he is not an easy person to be around. This is part of what makes him an interesting character to follow – he’s often unlikeable and is very flawed, yet it’s easy to understand why he is the way he is. It’s obvious that he’s not okay, and it doesn’t seem like any of his friends have truly tried to help him.
Rather than confront him directly and constructively about his behavior, they all just talk behind his back about how much they can’t stand him. Joon-hwan is kind to him and doesn’t abandon him when the others do, but he also doesn’t have the necessary hard conversations with Dong-man that could help him do better.
Only Dong-man’s older brother HWANG JIN-MAN (Park Hae-joon) cares enough to push him on his choices and behavior. Jin-man wants him to give filmmaking up and find steady work, offering to get him a job as a welder like him, but Dong-man isn’t ready to let go of his dream. Despite his frustration with his little brother, Jin-man doesn’t let anyone mess with him. When he sees that sign on the bar door, he marches in and tells off the group of 40-somethings for acting like elementary school bullies.
Eun-ah, too, pushes Dong-man to do better in her own way. When Dong-man asks her how to fix his script, she tells him his protagonist should be fighting for someone he loves. Reading the script made her think, “This director has nothing that he loves.” Eun-ah is direct, but not unkind, which is likely why Dong-man responds better to her criticisms and truly hears her.
After days of letting himself wallow from his recent setbacks, Dong-man is done with the self-pitying and decides he’s going to give Dong-hyun a piece of his mind. He marches into Dong-hyun’s office and, in front of all the employees (including his “friends” who work there), lays into Dong-hyun for being a jerk. Dong-man vows that if he can’t succeed, he’ll become even more useless just to make them all angrier. Then, he’ll do something great. For the first time, we see Eun-ha smile in catharsis as she watches Dong-man take her backstabbing colleagues to task. (She and Joon-hwan are the only ones amused by Dong-man’s outburst.)
Later, at their usual (coincidental) meeting spot by the train tracks in their neighborhood, Eun-ah gifts Dong-man some side dishes her grandmother made. They seem to be for an ex-boyfriend Eun-ah hasn’t been able to tell her grandmother she’s no longer seeing. We end the week with Dong-man giddy at the small kindness from Eun-ah who is starting to look a little more alive.
As expected from this writer, we got a lot of emotional turmoil and pain this week. Our characters are going through it, but we’re already seeing rays of hope from small moments of desperately needed connection. We got much more of Dong-man this week than Eun-ah, so I’m curious to learn more about her background and situation. They are both so lonely and broken, but express it in very different ways. They make an odd yet potentially endearing duo, and I can easily see them teaming up to help each other find purpose in their work (and life) again.
RELATED POSTS