For a Kdrama romance film to traffic in something NOT grand or deeply moving would seem almost an oddity or even sacrilegious. But that's in essence what Very Ordinary Couple does. It traffics in the real world kind of relationship that is almost TOO familiar and the empathy that the director elicits over the course of the movie is a delicate nuanced thing.
Familiar Lee Min-Ki plays the cad of a regular boyfriend with perfect candor and draws out viewers detest of him almost effortlessly. On the other side is the mostly adorable Kim Min-hee as a girlfriend that could easily be cherished though petty and snide in her own way.
The chemistry and balance between them both is the glue that holds this together while also not generating to much disdain for their foibles and bad behavior, These characters are ones you can care about in the midst of the mess that is an ordinary affair. The journey for both characters is quite predictable but not in a bad way because you want to root for them as the rare success story of the flawed relationship that anyone has likely experienced. When you reach the end it dawns on the observant viewer that the outcome isn't the point so much as it is the lesson to be learned by the twisting journey that got us there!
This is where the whole film redeems itself and what will in the end leave the most lasting impression.
