Motel California (2025)

Can love heal your childhood traumas ?

PLOT: The "gangsters", a group of different children, harassed in their small town, grew up very united. The FL (mixed race child - Dead mother - living in her father's motel) fleed at the age of 20 to go to Seoul. She experienced very difficult times, poverty, but ended up becoming an interior decorator. Years later, she returns to her hometown to renovate a motel, and meets again her "gangsters" including her "soul mate", the ML who became a veterinarian (dead father, lives with a psycho mother married 4 times). Will this difficult return allow the FL to confront her traumas?

+++ Great actors: beautiful and talented Lee Se Young & Na In Woo as CL, Choi Min Soo (adorable father), etc.
+++ Excellent OST
+++ Happy and satisfying ending.

### Heavy story, with an unbearable & immature FL (she has trauma, OK, but even so !!!), the ML's mother who really needs therapy but whom everyone puts up with, contrived coincidences, the unexplained change of heart of the harassers, etc.

=> The bad writing spoils a great cast and a good plot :(
******************************************************************
Can love heal your childhood traumas ?

PLOT: Les "gangsters", gpe d'enfants différents, harcelés dans leur petite ville, ont grandi très unis. La FL (enfant métis - mère DCD - habitant ds le motel de son père) a tt quitté à 20 ans pr partir à Séoul. Elle a vécu des moments très difficiles, la pauvreté, mais finit par devenir décoratrice d'intérieur. Elle revient ds sa ville natale pr rénover un motel, et retrouve son "âme sœur", le ML devenu vétérinaire (père DCD, mère psycho mariée 4 fois) et ses amis. Ce retour difficile permettra-t-il à la FL d'affronter ses traumas ?

+++ Super acteurs : Lee Se Young & Na In Woo en CL, Choi Min Soo (père adorable), etc.
+++ Excellentes OST
+++ Happy ending satisfaisante.

### Story pesante, avec une FL insupportable & immature (traumas OK, mais qd même), la mère du ML qui devrait se faire soigner mais que tt le monde supporte, des coïncidences grossières, le revirement des harceleurs inexpliqué, etc.

=> L'écriture gâche un super cast et un bon plot :(

Lire davantage

A complex story with many more deep-seated conflicts and emotional drama than it initially reveals

Prologue:
"Motel California" piles up drama in reverse, so to speak. The more we learn about the past, the more we understand of the tragedy...
Dramatic. Grievous, too, yet rounded in itself. Not joyful, yet the ambivalent emotions subtly creating a strange kind of warmth, because it's about human beings. Deeply hurt, insecure, imperfect and even embittered human beings who try to put aside their suffering, even suppress it, and still live their lives as best as they can.
Demanding, because as audience we might initially be somewhat reluctant to open our hearts to these people in "Motel California". (But we should, it´s worth it.)
A bitter, moving, and yet beautiful story about despite their defect nevertheless lovable people.




"Motel California" is a healing story amidst a structurally sickening, toxic work and living environment. It's primarily about the 'good, true and proper' origin, the outer impression, the 'right' educational institution, the 'right' gender (male). Additionally it is as well about exploitation, discrimination and bullying. It is also a story about love. Primarily between a boy and a girl. The girl ultimately struggles through life as a deeply sad lone fighter after having to leave behind the only much loved, loyal companion – the only one who, in her eyes, ever made her feel warmth, unconditional trust, reliability, and care in a cold, rejecting world.

"Motel California" is a complex story with many more deep-seated conflicts and emotional drama than it initially reveals. The recurring flashbacks gradually provide more valuable insights. This helps us better understand what is presented to us "today." Accordingly, only over time do we get emotionally closer to the protagonists, i.e., in the course of the second half.
"Motel California" tells of complicated life, of great pain, and above all of the FLs pain, who barrels through life with a disturbingly repellent shell. But many others also carry injuries and scars. Wonderful actors help us feel the drama within the drama through their strong performances.

The story, based on a novel, tackles demanding material. Quite courageous, because what torments and drives the two protagonists internally is not always pleasing on the outside. Especially the FL, with her incorrigible defiance and exorbitance, is sometimes hard to bear. Moreover, her deep pain, which sometimes almost spills out of her eyes, can be quite intense. Respect!!! For daring to uncompromisingly and soulfully tackling in a KDrama the distressing, uneasy dark side of emotional realities in an otherwise highly polished South Korea. And for Lee Se-young to take on the difficult, deeply wounded, ambivalent, and insecure character of Ji Kang Hee, who fights against the rest of the world from a seemingly lost position.

This is not a light-hearted KDrama. "Motel California" is not easy fare. Nevertheless, the latent severity is repeatedly dissolved by soul-warming scenes or channeled through pointedly inserted, humorous scenes. Additionally, there are soothing details between the lines, e.g. in dialogues, mise en scene, and atmospheric lighting.

What ultimately turns out to be a love story, at first starts of somewhat clumsily. At times, it might feel like a study of an almost toxic emotional dynamic between a man and a woman. In their rather awkward addictive habit and sometimes inappropriate ambivalence the love between them still seeks its way in difficult terrain. Over time we get to know the characters a bit more – their motives and backgrounds, as well as their unresolved, unredeemed feelings of guilt. Compassion may spread. And quite a lot so. This is KDrama par excellence. It's worth sticking with “Motel California” and not abandoning the two main leads (nor everyone else) along the way.

Layer by layer, the cloak of forgetting and suppression is gently removed over the 12 episodes. This cloak protectively covered the unresolved feelings. Yet, ultimately it turns out as emotional prison that has long prevented authentic, sincere encounters and healing communication.

The 'Motel California' ultimately represents a nurturing vessel for such encounters and healing. It is a symbol for origin, stigma and opportunity alike. The 'Motel California' forms an island in the sea of cruel rumor mills, social control, social ostracism, and discrimination. The name of the motel – "California" – represents the dream of another world. The motel as an establishment, in turn, stands for what the protagonist was always ashamed of in her childhood. For what caused her to experience painful 'othering' as a child. She was different and grew up under shattered, disreputable, and ultimately tragic family circumstances. I.e. that she is different – not as she should be – was (and is) mercilessly mirrored by her environment. She was not recognized as a full member of society in a small world where everyone seems to know everything about everyone else . And the 'disreputable' that clung to her was inevitably linked to the 'motel' in her eyes – the motel as a mirror of her inconsolable, almost unbearable, and still unresolved injuries of her childhood and youth. Nevertheless, the motel is also her home and witness to her forgotten (including good) childhood memories. "Home, Bitter Home", so the title of the original novel. At last the Motel also becomes a social hub for those who are ready to find redemption. This is thanks not least to Kang Hee's father, who, with his liberal, unmistakably patient, and trusting manner, opens the field for it.







Nevertheless, I also have criticism:
Quite inappropriate in view of the difficult, emotionally complex theme of this KDrama are, in my eyes, the really intrusive product placements – almost as if a commercial break is being inserted every now and then... Cringey!

Lire davantage