Postnatal Care Center (2020)

Perfect simplicity

I don’t give a perfect score lightly, let’s just say that officially, that’s fifth drama that I gave 10 out of 10 and I just had to check it, because I honestly didn’t remember when was the last time I did it (for those interested, four remaining perfect dramas on my watchlist are: What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, Love in the Moonlight, Kairos and Goblin). But with this I really didn’t have a choice. It took me a while to understand that this drama just deserves it, since I could’t find any weak side to it. Somehow I decided that there must be something wrong with it. I was just looking for a reason not to give it a 10, but I couldn’t. This drama is just perfect.

The story is simple. Hyun Jin is high positioned manager in a cosmetic company. She’s self assured woman of success. There’s just one thing that’s missing and it’s a child. So in a pretty advanced age of 41 she finally get’s pregnant. The thing is that work is everything for her, so she doesn’t really have time to prepare for maternity. After difficult birth Hyun Jin and her husband discover that they’re pretty clueless about what to do with an infant so they go to the titular Birthcare center, a luxurious resort, where young mothers can relax after childbirth.
Hyun Jin quickly learns that rules in Birthcare Center are totally different than in outside world. Here nobody cares what are you doing and how old are you. Your name cease to exist, since everyone will call you by your child’s name. And the most important thing is to have enough breast milk to feed the baby.

The drama doesn’t really have one main plot. There’s one motive that travel through some episodes, but the main action point is Hyun Jin stay at Birthcare Center and her path to become true mother. Instead of main plot, every episode is about one problem or subject related to motherhood. From what young mother should sacrifice for a child to naming, we get vast array of subjects that bother young mothers.

At one point I’ve noticed that I’ve just watched a whole episode about breastfeeding and it was absolutely amazing. Because this drama shows that there’s not just one way to be a good mother. I love that to this one sided environment where the amount of sacrifice shows how good of a mother you are suddenly comes a woman that openly admits that mother’s feelings are also important.

Because characters are what build this drama. From main characters to the ones that appear only for one episodes. They all bring something to the story, even if we need to wait for it for a bit. And they all have their own problems and own bigger or smaller successes. Privately I loved the most plot line of Hyun Jun’s (or “Sa Rangs mother”) that suffered from her husband indifference. For almost whole series I had my mind set to what I want this plot line to end like. And it turned out to end totally differently, and after seeing the reasoning behind it, I’ve decided that it makes a prefect sense. But throughout the whole series viewer saw this situation and it was almost clear what the outcome would be.

Playing with convention in this drama is another reason why this drama is so perfect. From “escaping zombies” from the hospital and leaving the infected behind, to introducing Birthcare center hierarchy with Snowpiercer reference. And all of it is just a background to the bittersweet story about hardships of being a new mom. And what this drama does perfectly is juggling between comedy and drama. There’s nothing in between here, honestly. It’s either visiting shaman to find out which name would guarantee that the child would become a lawyer or absolutely heartbreaking side story about loosing a child and trying to fill the void.

And this drama can keep the viewer entertained even with a smallest of story. Even side plots seem interesting enough.

And all of those things aside, what this drama hit me the most was an emotional baggage that came with it. The dilemma that was the centrer of the story about what a woman has to sacrifice to be a mom was for me truly depressing. When I saw all those young (and as it turned out later on very successful) mothers stripped from their identity by wearing those horrible, saggy dresses and being called by their child’s name. And the way Hyun Jin tries to stay relevant at her job, but is inevitably slowly replaced by someone else. This was truly terrible. Like, because she has a child, she has to resign from her life, when her husband is living pretty normally. To be honest, I’m actually trying for a baby with my husband. We had some rough moments so far, so some story here hit me personally. And when I’ve watched this drama, what I initially felt was fear. Is it the reality of motherhood? Is really sacrificing all your life the core of motherhood? Is it really the end of the life as I know so far?

This drama asks all those questions, and its characters answer them in a lot of different ways. Which is also another answer of its own. That there’s no just one way to be a good mother. That motherhood is absolutely complicated and sometimes incredibly exhausting. That it’s normal to ask yourself a question: is it worth it? And: am I doing it right? And it might be silly to read all of those things from a drama, but maybe that’s the reason it’s so great. That underneath all this silly humour and ridiculous scenes there’s something more to this rather simple story.

This review turned in a very personal and a bit off topic direction. But what I want to say here is that this drama is the best that I’ve seen in a while and will stay with me for a long time.

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