There’s a defiance to Love in the Big City on both a narrative and formal level, one that achieves the remarkable feat of feeling both timely and timeless at the same time. On one hand, there’s its story of two social outcasts who come together and embark on a beautiful, once-in-a-lifetime friendship. And, on the other, there’s the film’s resistance to be categorized as one type of film — colouring outside the lines of romantic comedy convention and infusing flavours of coming-of-age, K-drama, and, in some moments, domestic drama.
Based on the eponymous award-winning novel by Sang Young Park, Love in the Big City traces the years-long friendship that blossoms between the free-spirited and rebellious Jae-hee (Kim Go-eun) and the reserved and serious Heung-soo (Steven Sanghyun Noh). The pair originally meets at school, and while they initially run in different circles — in Jae-hee’s case, it’s a circle of one — they discover that they each exist on the fringes of society. Jae-hee is more or less ostracized by her peers for constantly going against the grain of Korean society, while Heung-soo is a closeted gay man in a conservative community. The two are almost fated to be the best of friends, and as they venture into adulthood, the film examines their respective journeys of finding romance in the big city.
Ask almost any gay man, and they’ll happily tell you how important — indeed, life-saving — their friendships with women are. In fact, we’ve seen many gay man/straight woman best friend duos throughout film and TV history; it’s a relationship dynamic that inherently breeds tension, love, understanding, and heartache. While Love in the Big City certainly harkens to this sub-genre of onscreen storytelling, it effectively forges its own path and offers a refreshing take. That’s largely thanks to the peeling-back approach with which director E.oni tackles Park’s story and characters. She allows us to see Jae-hee and Heung-soo as they are seen by others, by each other, and, by the end, by themselves.
In this regard, Kim and Noh deserve utmost praise for delivering such prismatic performances. As Jae-hee, Kim is undeniably magnetic; she is fiery yet soft, impenetrable at times yet deeply vulnerable at others — whenever she steps outside the box, you want to go with her. And as Heung-soo, Noh shines in the quietest moments; his character may hide from others, but Noh never hides from us.
Hopefully, this movie finds its way to every corner in the world, not just for the craftspersonship everyone in the cast and crew displays here, but also because of what this film means. A TV series adaptation of Love in the Big City was recently the target of conservative backlash in South Korea; meanwhile, women and LGBTQ+ folks in North America (and many parts of the world) continue to find themselves in precarious sociopolitical positions.
Love in the Big City reminds us of the power of rebellion, the importance of community, and, at its most fundamental level, the sheer joy of watching a well-made movie.
