“Melancholia” (멜랑꼴리아) 

By Jae-Ha Kim
jaehakim.com
January 3, 2022

☆☆☆☆
Ji Yoon-Soo (played by Im Soo-Jung)
Baek Seung-Yoo (played by Lee Do-Hyun)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

You know all those real-life stories about teachers having sex with their underage students? This isn’t one of them.

As I wrote in a review for Teen Vogue:

This nuanced series depicts how a math teacher (Im Soo-jung) encourages her morose student (Lee Do-hyun) to live up to the potential he had as a child genius. While his parents care about him, they also view him as their human trophy — someone to brag about to all their friends. Jealous students plant rumors that the two are involved in a relationship and all hell breaks loose. “Melancholia” is the kind of K-drama where the viewer is begging for revenge, on behalf of the main characters.

While “Melancholia” isn’t a full-on makjang series like 2021’s “The Penthouse” trilogy, it shares some similar elements: privileged high school students whose rich parents will do anything to ensure their children earn top grades, even if they need to be manipulated. While not as clever as “SKY Castle” — which also looked at the cut-throat world of high school students aiming to get into elite universities — “Melancholia” stresses that forcing a child to excel beyond their abilities causes more harm than good.

The parable of this series is that grades aren’t everything. Children who are great at memorization (of leaked test answers) may seem to be at the top of their game, but that doesn’t mean they have learned anything. This type of education makes it difficult for youngsters to take a step back to look at the full picture. It doesn’t mean they’re stupid. But not every student is a genius … and that’s OK.

At Asung High School, Yoon-Soo is an anomaly. She wants students to learn and love math as much as she does. She uses art, music and photography to show students how mathematics is not just something found in the classroom, but is an integral part of life. She sees that Seung-Yoo has no desire to participate in class or put any effort into his assignments. But she also refuses to write him off. Her job as an educator is to teach students — all students.

Seung-Yoo could’ve used some of this kind of positive affirmation at home. Instead, his father beats him against his trophy case — which is filled with all of his childhood math awards — and tells him to achieve this kind of greatness again. His parents are focused on their version of success and prestige and push him to the point of destruction, instead of getting to the root of why he no longer cares about math and school.

As Seung-Yoo develops a school boy crush on his teacher, everyone but Yoon-Soo notices. His less-gifted classmates can’t match him academically, so they start rumors about the teacher and student. One boy crudely photoshops their faces onto the bodies of a couple at the beach. Another student, who has always had a crush on Seung-Yoo, takes a photo of the teacher resting her head on the boy’s shoulders after she fell asleep.

OK, about this part… This is where Yoon-Soo was too clueless. She had no ulterior motives for this day trip, but she should’ve been more cautious about perception. There is nothing wrong with a student and teacher going to museums together. But when it is an excursion that hasn’t been sanctioned by the school and is just the two of you, the teacher needs to get written parental consent to take the underage child from Seoul to Jeju Island. Better yet: ask the parents to come along.

With Yoon-Soo’s encouragement, Seung-Yoo begins to enjoy math again. And his classmates are consumed with jealousy. One boy tells him to fail the mid-term exams and go back to being in last place … or he will tell everyone about Seung-Yoo’s crush on their teacher. Seung-Yoo doesn’t backdown and tells him that the person with the most power at school is the top student, which is… Seung-Yoo.

This isn’t a spoiler to reveal, since it’s depicted at the start of the series: Rumors get out of hand and Yoon-Soo is ousted from the school.

The series took too long in getting to the finale. But the ending is satisfying, with some of the younger characters realizing how wrong they had been to blindly follow adults’ immoral orders to lie and cheat. And after many years have passed since the scandal, Seung-Yoo and Yoon-Soo find peace and happiness in their lives.

Biggest disappointment: With Noh Jung-Ah (portrayed by the underrated Jin Kyung), the series had a love-to-hate-her villain, whose need for power is equaled only by her longing for her father’s approval. Jung-Ah was the all-powerful head of Asung High School, who had influential leaders begging her (with pleas and bribes) to admit their children into her prestigious school. But as the series progressed, she transformed from a cunning businesswoman into a shrill, screaming caricature of herself.

Airdates: Sixteen 70-minute episodes aired on tvN from November 10 to December 30, 2021. It was originally slated to premiere on November 3, but production was pushed back due to COVID-19.

Spoiler Alert: Seung-Yoo attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at an age when his peers would’ve been Middle School students. After seeing that this child was able to solve problems that he had spent years trying to figure out, his classmate and dormitory roommate — a fellow Korean national — died by suicide. This broke Seung-Yoo, who vowed to give up math. He returned to Korea and refused to live up to his potential. His parents were humiliated and pushed him hard. The more they pushed, the more he resisted.

Before this suicide revelation, the U.S. story arc seemed to insinuate that Seung-Yoo’s roommate was sexually abusing the child, which led to Seung-Yoo equating high-level mathematics with what he had experienced in the U.S. (To be clear: he was not abused.) But this begs the question: Why would an elite university allow an underage child to live with an adult student who is not his guardian? And why didn’t one of his parents move to the United States with him while he was underage? Or if the latter wasn’t possible, any of South Korea’s elite SKY universities would’ve gladly accepted a child genius who had been accepted by M.I.T.

Speaking of which, all this fuss about excelling in school and what it would do for their future — and yet, none of Seung-Yoo’s privileged and well-connected classmates accomplished anything magnificent, even after graduating from college. Some are unemployed. Others are working as math tutors. Seung-Yoo was the only notable exception. He become an internationally famous mathematician and author. So what does he do? He returns to his old high school to teach, as a cover for his convoluted plan to clear Yoon-Soo’s name. (In Episode 6, Yoon-Soo’s wedding to her long-time boyfriend is ruined when the photo of her resting her head on Seung-Yoo’s shoulder is released, which causes a huge scandal that ends her career and her marriage. But she later re-invents herself as an in-demand math tutor for high-level students.)

When the series ends, Seung-Yoo and Yoon-Soo share their first kiss, and it’s clear that at an age-appropriate time, their relationship has finally settled into a romantic one. I’d estimate the characters ages to be late 20s and early 40s, respectively, by this stage.

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