La Pluie (2023)

La Pee-ew

La Pluie started off promising enough with an interesting concept and characters that worked within that concept, however, it quickly snowballed with ridiculous, unnecessary drama that contributed nothing to the story and eventually concluded by ghosting one of its leads for almost the entire episode. It could have been much better than it was if the creators had a more solid grasp on what kind of story they were wanting to tell. As it is, it strays into the absurd and eventually loses any kind of credibility. This is one drama that almost isn't worth the watch because the script is so bad.

The concept of rain related deafness was interesting where the person is unable to hear anyone except their "soulmate". It's not well explained or really developed, but at least initially that was fine. You have Saengtai and Phat who have experienced hearing loss for at least two years at the time the story starts and are soulmates. However, due to his parents divorcing, Tai doesn't believe in soulmates any longer and actively ignores Phat whenever he tries to communicate with him. I liked Phat and Tai initially. The fact that both of them were determined to defy their destinies and then ended up falling for each other in the end was cute. There was a decent build up and I liked their interactions. What ended up killing it for me was throwing Lomfon into the mix. The drama that created was unnecessary, particularly suddenly having Lomfon develop hearing loss and hearing both Phat and Tai. From there it was just a constant back and forth of misunderstandings that got tiring to watch. The final episode sent Tai on the hunt to find Phat and we spend almost the entirety of the episode Phat-less which was certainly a decision. He finally shows up with about 5 minutes remaining, they make up and everything is great. Throughout the series there's the side couple of Saengtien, Saengtai's younger brother, and Lomfon who start to develop feelings for each other, but it's complicated by Lomfon's feelings for Tai as well. Basically everything gets neatly and conveniently wrapped up and leaves you wondering why it took so long to get to that point as well as feeling like nothing was really gained.

I do feel a lot of issues would have been cleared up if the parameters of the rain deafness were defined. This is supposed to be a medical condition and yet there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to how it works and I lost interest in the idea of it as it was manipulated to forward the story. Lomfon, who has feelings for Tai, doesn't seem to have a chance because he's not Tai's soulmate until he very conveniently develops the hearing loss and can hear both Tai and Phat which, it is never addressed or explained that he seemingly can hear both of them, he just focuses on the fact that he can hear Tai. They also talk about how it's not possible that they can hear more than one person which makes it seem like this is a complete anomaly and again, isn't that just convenient. And then when Lomfon and Phat start fighting over Tai, all Tai has to do is yell that he doesn't want this destiny and suddenly they're all cured? It just completely strayed out of the realm of plausible within the confines of the story to the absurd and took away any and all credence it had to begin with. And I do get that a lot of it was probably deliberate. Half the point of the drama is this debate of whether soulmates are real or not. But there needs to be some level of grounding as well and there was not.

I started out overall liking most of the characters, particularly Phat. They each had their own distinctive personalities and I was hopeful that there was going to be some real character growth, but I was frankly disappointed the farther along we got.
-Saengtai was one of my least favorite characters, but I also found him interesting in his decision to defy his destiny. I didn't approve of his treatment of his mother and his childish behaviour regarding his parents' divorce. The fact that he laid the full blame on his mother and evidently made absolutely no effort to understand why his parents had reached the point of concluding things were not going to work out was frustrating the more that got dragged out. That his parents had to sit him down and explain things in detail that didn't feel like they should need an explanation was ridiculous. He was old enough that he should have been able to figure a lot of that out himself. Aside from that, I also found his passiveness to be frustrating as the story progressed. Things that seemed like they should have caused a reaction didn't and especially after he and Phat broke up, he was just far too calm about everything. And then there were other times he made unilateral conclusions without waiting for any kind of explanation. All in all, he came across as quite selfish and self-absorbed at times.
-Phat started out pretty perfect. He was friendly, kind, compassionate, and an all around good guy. He was incredibly patient and considerate with Tai, he communicated and communicated well both with Tai and with his ex, Nara. Even with Lomfon he was initially polite. He was an absolute breath of fresh air but in hindsight a little too perfect. He lacked some personality. But then Episode 10 hit and his character went up in flames. His reaction to finding out Tai had lied to him and finding Lomfon kissing him was to beat the crap out of Lomfon. The sudden aggressiveness that permeated his every action that episode was completely out of the blue and out of character. And he never shows any real remorse for those actions. He never apologizes to Lomfon for attacking him nor does he apologize to Tai for going off the rails. It's all very neatly swept under the rug. He later goes to try to make up with Tai, sees him talking to Lomfon and immediately interprets that as them being together and decides the best course of action is to disappear. We see him in Episode 12 for a grand total of about 5 minutes during which he mostly stares blankly at Tai while he monologues. It's a disappointing ending for the character.
-Saengtien is a loveable, mischievous brat and I absolutely loved his relationship with Tai and him as a character. I don't recall a good explanation being given for why he and Lomfon are at such odds initially, other than they are very different people. Lomfon is obviously more introverted and Tien is much more extroverted. I liked the way that Tien's attraction to Lomfon was developed as it felt natural. I truly felt bad for him when he saw Lomfon and Tai kissing and his reaction and his behaviour afterward felt justified. The love confession scene with Lomfon is such a good scene, just his hesitancy to believe, rightfully so, and then the hope. It's beautifully done and the range of emotions always gets me. The ending though where he suddenly develops hearing loss feels a tad ridiculous. Again, I know it's driving home the point of the show, but still.
-Lomfon left me feeling conflicted regarding his character. On the one hand, I liked his interactions with Tien and I liked the build up of their relationship. And initially there was nothing wrong with him liking Tai because at that point, Tai was single. His continued pursuit though of Tai even after he had entered into a public relationship with Phat was over the line. At that point, it didn't matter if his feelings were conflicted as to whether he liked Tai or Tien. Even with developing the rain deafness suddenly and being able to hear Tai, the fact that Tai was already in a loving relationship should have told him that he was now off limits. His continual pushing of the matter made me lose a lot of respect for his character. And while I was glad he did apologize to Tai, he also owed an apology to Phat which he never does. I do still love his confession to Tien though and I think they're adorable together.

The acting was overall decent. I liked the chemistry between Suar and Copter. I felt it was lacking more between Title and Pee, but I think that's in part because there were times where it felt like Title forgot to emote and his expressions were just dead. They did have their moments though, just not enough to be consistent. Aside from the last episode where he just seemed devoid of any real emotion which felt out of place, I liked Pee's performance. Suar was great and I was impressed with his chemistry with everyone he interacted with. Copter was a bit wooden at times which worked to an extent with his character, but I did feel he could have given more.

There were several elements that were thrown in without much explanation that really didn't contribute much to the story. One of the main ones being that both Phat and Lomfon had history with Tai without any of them realizing it. Phat's grandmother had lived next door to Tai and he and Phat had communicated via notes over the years, however, had never actually met. And then Lomfon had his own connection to Tai as Tai had saved him from being hit by a car, that one encounter resulting in Lomfon falling in love with the stranger who saved him and making Tai Lomfon's first love. Nara and Dream's developing relationship came out of left field. While cute, I don't think there was time to give it the attention it deserved so it wasn't well executed and felt rushed. And finally, in the last episode, we have a random couple show up to help Tai when he runs out of gas and for some reason get their life story. They get more screen time than Phat.

This was essentially a drama with an interesting concept and a decent cast that was let down by the writing. It started out well but went downhill during the last couple of episodes and the ending was disappointingly anticlimactic. Frankly, this is one drama that you're not going to be missing out on if you skip it.

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