BLISS RATING: ★+
“In our life, there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.” – Marc Chagall
This series began auspiciously. But ended soppy with a whole lot sophisms in between that got repetitive and trite. If the characters had only talked to each other and shared with each other (even a little), this series could have ended with five less episodes and perhaps a better plot and no doubt more memorable. This series end up with no depth or range to the characters. What you saw was what you got – superficiality. All talked around each other, through each other, but never to each other. In other words, this series is one-dimensional.
It starts out promising though. Maze (Singto Prachaya) is a CEO of a media agency. Maze is driven, hard-working, efficient, manipulative, and a no-nonsense individual. He works hard but he never plays hard. He has lost his capacity to feel anything that is fun. He is too focused and driven by work. While he looks good, he is snobbish and arrogant at times. His employees have learned to pretty much work around his ideocracies and for the most part he is accepting and tolerant of small mistakes. However, large errors he internalizes, and those do affect his own psyche in debilitating ways. Despite his dispassionate exterior, he internally feels very vulnerable.
He is seeking an artist to do a painting for an exclusive wedding and Phap (Tae Darvid), is highly recommended. Phap, however, is an unorthodox individual who does not follow set rules and leads a life pretty much like his personality – unconventional. But he is a brilliant artist. Maze is relentless in trying to get Phap to follow structure and order while Phap tries to get Maze to enjoy life and its simplistic pleasures. The remainder of this series is a progression of bantering and jibes and caustic remarks heaped on each other, effortlessly and continuously. Some are funny but most are not and sometimes they are mean, cruel, and hurtful I found a lot of that rather cringeworthy. While I love sarcasm in limited quantities, this was one right after the other. That was how they ‘communicated’ and subsequently how they connected to each other. Obviously, this is not a solid basis for any type of meaningful relationship.
In this mixture was another couple, of course. One of Maze’s friends is a budding star in BLs. His name is Tharn (Yacht Patsit). Tharn is a soft-spoken young man but is just a bit unsure of his own talents. He is offered a starring role in a new BL series with Nueng (Yoon Phusanu). There is an instant attraction between the two that becomes complicated unnecessarily. Initially there is this ‘thing’ between Maze and Nueng that no one fully understands.
At first, it appears that Maze is attracted to Nueng. But a bit later, we find out that they had a falling out as they are (step) brothers. Here is where the story thread begins to unravel, and it becomes an exercise in frustration. While we (the audience) know the tensions between Maze and Nueng are not sexual, NO ONE around them knows that. Neither one does anything to explain that this tension is not sexual but due to an immature misunderstanding when they were younger. In hindsight, it all appeared to me to be so blown out of proportions that if one or both had apologized a week after the incident, none of this story would have needed to happen.
Nonetheless, both Maze and Nueng keep this information close to their chest so to speak, knowing full well that the misunderstandings that lead to this tension continues to fester while others around them can only interpret what they see in accordance with their own eyes. It is all too theatrical. When the misunderstanding is finally dealt with, neither and both take any responsibility to explain what it was or what their relationship really was. One would have to be in a dense fog not to see how this misunderstanding and their reconnection could be misinterpreted especially by others who are drawn to them romantically.
These kinds of artificial dramas are cheap shots and are completely unnecessary and diminishes the full story. The rest of the story becomes predictable and one long trope. Frankly, I became so numb by this endless recycling of misinterpretations and sophisms that when the story finally advances, I was pretty numb to feeling anything.
This story only gets interesting in the last two episodes where we find out some facts about Maze we did not know. We find out that Maze has abandonment issues and that is why he is such a tsundere. We see the depth of the love that Maze has for Phap only at the end when both are free to show their vulnerabilities and we care about them. These guys can act; there just is no material to work with here other than tropes, sarcasms, and insults.
While Yacht and Yoon as Tharn and Neung, are very handsome and adorable, they seemed a bit miscast. Ironically, their only ability to act was when their characters played the characters in the BL series they were filming. They were good and showed some serious acting skills. It is difficult to pretend to be characters who like each other pretending to like each other in real life but not too much but in reality, they honestly do. A real balancing act that they affectively did well. But as their characters in this series, Tharn always seemed a bit befuddled and withdrawn while Neung had such a low affect about him that he was barely noticeable.
Yet, he did and said some things to Phap that were simply awful and uncalled for. He knew Phap was jealous and that was the reason why he was so negative towards him. But, Neung did nothing to clear up the misunderstanding or at the very least to tell Maze to clear it up. It seemed as if he was deliberately trying to get the ire of Phap. It just did not make any sense. I found his characterization rather unlikeable, and his behavior undignified. This simply cheapened this series as it was so artificial and unnecessary. And adding to this mess was Maze’s obsession with Neung even after he cleared up the misunderstanding. He too at time was equally as cruel to Phap’ s feelings as Neung was. I had a difficult time fully understanding Maze and Neung’s real relationship.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? Honestly, no one did, and I believe this is the first time I have even stated that. Everyone was ‘good’ but no one really stood out and certainly no one was great. The major actors certainly had their moments when they were very good and believable, but the script did not allow that to be sustainable. But I would like to give an “Honorable Mention’ to C’game Supawit Tantimaporn as Kuea. His portrayal of a lovelorn suitor trying to woo his co-worker was simply adorable. His procrastination in telling her that he liked her seemed believable and real and therefore his character was the only genuine one in this series. He was shy, timid, and afraid of rejection and he portrayed that with great skill. Ironically, it was this ‘straight couple’ that really shined in this BL series. Yes, Singto Prachaya is the victor ludorum in the BL world but this did not offer him much of a challenge.
Besides the deficiencies I mentioned above, there are other flaws that simply detracted from whatever message this series was trying to convey:
1.The appalling number of incidents of physical abuse heaped onto others. The altercation between the managers of the two stars is a prime example. A male beating up a female is simply unacceptable under any circumstance. I found that whole scene so difficult to watch. Phap’s physical responses to Neung is just excessive and completely unnecessary. Just stop with the gratuitous physicality in these series.
2. The lack of intervention when it comes to the physical violence. The two stars are standing there like dolts not wanting to get involved rationalizing that the two managers beating up on each other need to work this out on their own. Really? What happened to just common decency?
3. The cavalier attitude when the new client of Pooky (Sprite Patteerat) describes how she attempted to rape him. This is completely beyond the pale and should have been dealt with more effectively. We cannot continue to watch movies or series where the consequences to these actions are not shown. These series are in the forefront for societal and cultural changes, whether they like it or not, and merely mentioning this with a peripheral apology is not enough. Rape is rape. No matter who perpetrates it or who the victim is. This needs to be more forcibly addressed. Do not use this as a message of shock. It deserves a better response.
4. Messages are way too obtuse to be understood. This might be partly due to cultural standards not fully appreciated by others, or to the accepted practices of production for BLs, especially Thai ones. But it is now time to move from these long-drawn out passages based on fabrications of misunderstandings, miscommunications, or no communication at all. Everybody is so wounded in this series but had each sat down and said what they wanted to say, this series would have only been four episodes long with a lot more time to develop more intense story lines about the characters and what makes them tick. This becomes insufferable and unmercenary. The theme become repetitive, boring, trite, and overdone. Finally, when some real acting occurs (as in the last two episodes), we have lost interest and frankly do not care.
5. The torturous scenes of couples being together in bed and acting, pretending, and overtly discouraging intimacy is becoming old, tiresome, and irritating. I understand the need for romance, courting, and taking things slowly, but this series showed no real interest in intimacy at all. Companionship. Yes. Platonic connection. Yes. Real connection? No. I am sorry but I never bought the connection let along chemistry between Maze and Pang. Part of the romance must be some ultimate intimate coupling at the end. Even movies from the 50s, with that era’s uptightness and parochial thinking, could sense that when a couple got together, they would consummate that relationship in the end. I never got the impression that these two would ever have a sexual relationship. They might live together, make breakfast together, and be a ‘couple’ but sex? No. It is not necessary to see ‘sex’, but some manifestation of intimacy must be implied, or felt, or at least conveyed that intimacy will be a part of the fabric of their relationship! Is that not the aim of an affaire de coeur? And in the end, when they finally kissed, the distance between the two of them kissing was a fissure large enough to drive a car through. This was not an imagery of what was going to happen a bit later. This was an image of an obligatory kissing scene to end a BL series.
Indeed, I have gone off on tangents in my review but this series, with such a succinct and beautiful title, just completely missed the point to its title. You have some fine actors and when (at the end) we can see some real acting displaying more than barbs and sarcasms, it become believable and admittedly emotional. Their painting the canvas together, for example, was so touching, moving, and relatable that I finally felt something between them. Those scenes were too infrequent, however, and instead became formulaic.
This series had it started at its end, where we can see, hear, feel, relate, and watch them become a couple, would have been phenomenal. Instead, it disappointed me profoundly.
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