[HanCinema's Drama Review] "I'm Not A Robot" Episodes 15-16

Seon-hye (played by Lee Min-ji) is Min-gyoo's kissing coach. Also she's Ji-ah's best friend. I'd completely forgotten about that part because Seon-hye has been so prominent in the kissing coach role she hadn't been talking to Ji-ah very much lately. I bet Seon-hye's not even a real kissing coach, everyone is just pretending like she is because Baek-gyoon can't risk bringing someone they can't trust into the conspiracy, even if they have to take Ji-ah's word for it that Seon-hye is on the level.

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Some establishing scenes actually explaining all of this would have been nice. As a normal person who is not in a dire financial situation Seon-hye could have provided some badly needed perspective to the ethical problems in Baek-gyoon's plan. Unfortunately Seon-hye just kind of hangs out on the sidelines providing interference, and maybe possibly being a future love interest to Hok-tal (played by Song Jae-ryong) or Ssan-ip (played by Ko Gun-han). She doesn't really do anything.

The lack of deliberate action on the part of any characters in "I'm Not a Robot" has been increasingly irksome to me. The main obvious issue is that this has made the drama very boring. All we seem to do anymore is just watch Min-gyoo act depressed because he knows that Ji-ah probably isn't actually a robot. While the placebo effect is still working, Min-gyoo is so listless we get the feeling that at any moment he could curl up into a sad little ball and cry himself to death.

When that's all we have to focus on it's actually a pretty big relief to get a scene where Yoo-cheol is creeping on Ri-el. Yoo-cheol comes off as surprisingly sympathetic. Sure Yoo-cheol gets frustrated at the end, but good on him for at least being able to tell her straight up how he feels. Whereas Ri-el is so cold and emotionally unresponsive it's a little surprising any man wants to be together with her at all, or vice versa.

There's a good irony there- Min-gyoo needs a woman whom he believes to be a robot physically nearby in order to maintain the emotional fortitude necessary to romance a woman who acts like a robot. But Ri-el is as usual too thinly drawn a character for this comparative dynamic to actually go anywhere. "I'm Not a Robot" is just lurching at this point, while we're left waiting for some big movement to reinvigorate the story.

Review by William Schwartz

"I'm Not a Robot" is directed by Jeong Dae-yoon, written by Kim Seon-mi-I and Lee Suk-joon-I, and features Yoo Seung-ho, Chae Soo-bin, Uhm Ki-joon, and Park Se-wan.