REVIEW: ‘Motel California’ Is So Angsty It’s Boring

In a new surprising feat, Motel California is the first KDrama I’ve watched where angsty dramatics are rendered frustratingly and almost borderline boringly predictable. Starring Lee Se-young and Na In-woo, this series focuses on Ji Kang-hee’s (Lee Se-young) homecoming journey. This process is excruciating, with the young woman’s traumas manifesting in rather unforgiving and, eventually, predictable behavior until almost the end. Unfortunately, because of the predictability, the angst and drama soon undercut itself, making the lessons learned read as rushed by the final episode.

Motel California boasts rather unlikable characters, starting with its two leads. Unlikable characters, when done right, can be fun to watch onscreen, but finding the balance is essential to keeping a viewer hooked. From the time we are introduced to them in Episode 1, there is already an imbalance between Kang-hee and Chun Yeon-soo (Na In-woo). Yeon-soo gives while Kang-hee takes, and that pattern, as is revealed throughout the series, becomes the standard.

Part of this is due to Yeon-soo’s love for Kang-hee. What starts off as admiration for her turns into a crush and inevitably turns into love. Through his actions, he more than proves the extent of his feelings but it’s not quite reciprocated. This lends itself to a natural angst that should, if following a standard romantic formula, resolve itself by the end of the series. Instead, every other episode, usually instigated by Kang-hee, we have this push-pull/will they, won’t they set-up that ultimately runs stale.

This constant drama between Kang-hee and Yeon-soo ultimately ends up with the expectation that they will always separate. Kang-hee’s need to push people away rather than allow herself to be vulnerable is an understandable action, particularly when Motel California flashes back and shows us how people in her hometown treat her. But, with each new obstacle thrown in her path, there’s minimal growth shown. She reverts back to her old patterns to the point when a pivotal reveal happens in Episode 10 that has her pushing Yeon-soo away yet again, and it loses its power.

Motel California has fascinating relationships that get stuck in plot-related stasis.

That’s not to say that having this kind of imbalance represented onscreen is always a bad thing. It’s not. In fact, it makes dynamics interesting at the beginning of the series because you hope that the characters will resolve things with the goal of creating balance. This doesn’t quite happen the way that it should. And, whether the shorter episodic count impacted this, the resolution that is given to us feels like a footnote rather than an actual moment of introspection for Kang-hee.

A similar note can be made regarding how the relationship between Kang-hee and her father, Ji Chun-pil (Choi Min-soo), resolves itself. However, there are subtleties in the characters’ interactions that make the speedy race to the finish a little easier to swallow. From the beginning, it’s clear that Kang-hee hates her father. She only calls him by his name, and it comes across as if he’s a deadbeat. But he’s not.

As Kang-hee unpacks all of her traumas, flashbacks tell us something different. Not only do they show us how childish and stunted Kang-hee is in these moments, but we also see a different perspective on Chun-pil. Through a child’s eyes, we can see why Kang-hee might interpret her father’s actions as a lack of love. However, his actions say otherwise. Throughout Kang-hee’s return home, his actions show he still cares for her immensely.

Through her body language and expressions, Kang-hee knows this, too. She knows how much her father cares for her and she punishes him for it, refusing to let go. What forces her to confront her feelings and try to reconcile is the news of his cancer diagnosis. Chun-pil’s actions to try to make her life and her friends’ lives easier while he’s dying further intensify the feelings that erupt. And because of how chaotic the grieving process is, her actions in Motel California Episodes 11-12 make sense, even if the massive uptick in the episodic pacing ends up making it a little harder to believe.

Motel California tries to highlight the theme of acceptance, with mixed results.

What ultimately sells it is the work actors Lee Se-young and Choi Min-soo have done in developing their characters’ complicated relationship onscreen. It is in the moments where they are working off of each other in one-on-one scenes where they truly shine. With Choi Min-soo’s more stoic, positive-presenting character, he has the challenge of not rising to match Kang-hee’s energy. Yet, somehow, there is balance, with Min-soo’s more quiet performance complementing Se-young’s more turbulent characterization.

As a character himself, Chun-pil is arguably Hana Town’s shining light. He takes care of Kang-hee’s friends without question, proving time and time again that he is a father who steps up. Rather than take money, he offers up the motel to all of Kang-hee’s friends. There is no judgement. Only acceptance, and that is something that Motel California tries to illustrate with mixed success in its storytelling. Chun-pil’s interactions with other characters prove to be one of the better examples of theming in the series.

Throughout Motel California, we see how awful the citizens of the town are. The parents themselves are not great, and we see this in how Kang-hee’s friends are treated. Yeon-soo is trapped in a cycle of taking care of his emotionally stunted mother,  Park Soo-ji (Ji Su-won), who is truly one of the villains of this series. Han A-reum (Lee So-e) is assaulted by her mother for not choosing someone wealthier. She throws all the years of domestic abuse she’s suffered in A-reum’s face, blaming her daughter for loving someone like Cha Seung-Eon (Koo Ja-sung) instead of taking care of her.

These moments help flesh out why Hana Town is something to be avoided for Kang-hee. But until she confronts her issues, she can’t fully grow like she wants. Running away from her problems also won’t stop bad things from happening. It is knowing this that Chun-pil lures her back under the premise of a design project, using his connection with Hwang Jeong-gu (Woo Mi-hwa) to provide something for Kang-hee to be proud of.

Things end up too angsty for their own good.

In the process, Geum Seok-kyeong (Kim Tae-hyeong), the secondary love interest and coworker, finds himself crushing on Kang-hee and quickly falls by the wayside. While it’s not abnormal in kdramas for the secondary love interest to have less focus, Seok-kyeong is an intriguing enough character that more time would have been nice with him. However, his purpose is to highlight how much Kang-hee loves Yeon-soo. Even if it culminates in an embarrassing proposal rejection in front of an entire village.

Overall, though, Motel California tries to do too much. Kang-hee’s journey home opens up a can of worms, with each new drama meant to add further complexity to the emotional turmoil in the young woman’s mind. However, balance is never attained. At a certain point, it seems like drama is done for the sake of drama rather than adding anything of benefit to the story. Even to the point where some characters never get their full dull. And that’s ultimately not a good watch.

Motel California asks a lot from its audience and ultimately proves to be a frustrating journey. Angst and drama can be powerful tools for shock value and messaging delivery. When everything is angsty and when characters don’t show adequate growth, there needs to be something more to convince the audience to stay. About halfway through, I asked myself whether sticking it out was worth it. Unfortunately, the payoff in the end is not worth the aggravation.

And therein lies the sad reality. Life is difficult for many and for many of the characters in Motel California, they end up trapped in a cycle, sometimes of their own making. But what gives a story its legs is the strength of its characters and how they progress. Our lead characters don’t make much progress, and when they do, it doesn’t feel earned. Instead, for much of the series, they take a step forward and take a step back, landing them in the same place for much of the journey, with an additional heaping of angst to try to rattle things up.

Motel California started off with strong, intriguing characters. Unfortunately, despite the cast’s compelling performances, the characters wear thin the longer the series runs. What initially hooks us soon proves frustrating, with the series’ hasty rush to the finish line forcing resolution rather than letting it evolve naturally. Either way, the end result is disappointing.

Motel California is now streaming in its entirety, exclusively on Viki.