Unlucky Girl! (2021)

I struggled a bit with this drama. Episode one creates a really solid foundation for the story to build on. There's the somewhat absurdist humor (which I admittedly didn't always get), this interesting trio of women who seem very different from each other but share one very important thing, and a very heartfelt look at the female leads life and her attitude towards her life. I was pretty hooked after ep 1.

But the drama couldn't seem to manage its overall tone and direction. We had episodes where the story went odd places for no discernible reason. Such whenever the trio is tasked with helping some random person overcome a challenge of some sort. These characters are generally not interesting, and neither were their problems, and the time spent with them often felt like a waste. There's an entire subplot to do with the female leads father running back into a woman he once cheated on the female leads mom with, a woman who happens to be a member of our main trio. This felt odd and awkward and uncomfortable to watch much of the drama, although they did manage to create a proper conclusion for it and eventually tie it into the overall story. And the drama didn't always get the absurdist humor right. It seemed only half-way committed to the joke at times, and you could really tell.

Overall, the tone and directing of this drama is confusing. I love all the humor around the three women being unlucky and bringing it with them wherever they go. I also really loved how heartwarming the drama could be when it wanted to be. But the rest of the drama seemed to not know what it wanted to do. I think if the drama had focused on the absurd humor, the plight of the three unlucky women, and adding in more heartfelt exploration of the story's themes, this would have been a better story. As it is, Unlucky Girl doesn't totally manage to pull all of its pieces together, and I both liked the drama and was underwhelmed by it. I did laugh a lot though, and I really loved this trio of ladies, so I would say it's still worth watching.

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