Series Review: MODERN LOVE (2019)
A couple of days ago, I felt quite exhausted from the stuff I was working on and needed a simple, a bit emotional yet also a heartwarming series to relax and keep my mind off the work. Luckily, Modern Love turned out to be the exact thing I was looking for, which I finished watching in only two days.
I have difficulty in keeping up with the series that has more than three seasons. For this reason, mini-series are my favourites and it is amazing to find quality ones like Modern Love. Though it is announced that the second season will be released by the end of this year, the episodes are independent of each other so there is great flexibility. You can just go and watch the episode you'd like to. Each episode lasts between 29-35 minutes, which means you may want to consider watching a few episodes if you are in search for a new and unique show but don't want to allocate too much time at the same time.
Modern Love has eight episodes, all of which are about different aspects of love in the contemporary world. The most interesting thing about this series is that all the episodes are based on real-life love stories, which were selected from the New York Times column of Modern Love.
What I love more is that, despite being simple, it is not cliche. All of the episodes show different forms of love with its all complexity -unlived and untold loves, love in elderliness, intense love, bipolar love, cheated love, free love, loss of love, unreciprocated love-. Though I read some reviews that argued this series is not very good at reflecting the dilemmas and struggles of love, I think the opposite. I don't think the creators of the show wanted to capture all the phases of love. They wouldn't keep the length of the series this short if showing everything about love was what they aimed to. In my opinion, they did an amazing job by capturing only the essentials of all the short stories and not forcing too much unnecessary drama on the audience.
Though I enjoyed all of the episodes, I will share my thoughts on some of my favourites for you to check them out and give a try.
1. When the Doorman Is Your Main Man
This is the first episode of the series. Maggie lives in an apartment in New York City (all the stories take place in NYC actually) and the apartment has a doorman who keeps his eyes on Maggie all the time. Maggie and the doorman seem to have a father-daughter-type relationship. Guzmin disapproves Maggie's boyfriends, help her with everyday life problems and acts as a true friend with whom Maggie can talk about anything and receive support. However, as the story narrates, it feels more like the Guzmin, the doorman is in love with Maggie while for Maggie, Guzmin is just a very good and supportive friend. The lines between them never get completely blurred. Throughout the story, Maggie gives birth, marries, moves to LA and returns to New York eventually, but her relationship remains the same with Guzmin. She always approaches him like a father. However, Guzmin seems to be completely fine with their relationship. We never see him striving for things to get more intense and romantic. Even after years, he seems to be happy by just being around Maggie and witnessing her life.
2. So He Looked Like Dad. It Was Just Dinner, Right?
This one is another great episode, in my opinion, which focuses again on the complexity of love. More specifically, the story explores the daddy issues. However, while doing so, it avoids turning the show into a sexual fetish. Instead, it bases the whole story on a vulnerable base that allows the audience to empathize with the characters. Maddy is a 21-year-old girl who lost her father at the age of 11. In the company where she works, a senior engineer catches Maddy's attention due to his strong resemblance to Maddy's dead father. She tries to fill her emptiness that is caused by a lack of a father in her life with this engineer, which results in a complicated relationship. Throughout the story, we witness Maddy's desperate longing for a father. This presence of a father is so significant to her that during her relationship with the engineer, she constantly ignores his romantic feelings to her, thereby leading a vague and vulnerable relationship.
3. The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap
The final episode of the series is also among the ones that touched my heart most. This one puts an elder couple at the centre of the story. Generally, people tend to conceptualize romantic love as something that one can only experience in youth. However, this episode amazingly portrays the love of an elder couple, who experience the intensity of the romanticism and its excitement at the deepest level. The most beautiful thing about their love was that while they were enjoying their new feelings, they were also healing their pains caused by their prior losses and sufferings. The whole episode has some very nice nuances about elder-love, which is highly pleasing to watch.