[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Why Her?" Episode 1

Soo-jae (played by Seo Hyun-jin) is an unpleasant attorney working for an unpleasant law firm which represents unpleasant clients with unpleasant legal enemies. All around, "Why Her?" is a drama about some fairly unpleasant people. So it's hard to argue with the significance of the title. Why should we care about Soo-jae? Sure, she might be an ace attorney, but Soo-jae is unapologetic about the fact that she's motivated entirely by her own ambition.

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Whether Soo-jae's actions are morally defensible is thus besides the point, even if the script bends over backwards to emphasize that all the low-class enemies challenging the wealthier sections of South Korean society are themselves uncredible schemers. There's a cynical bite to "Why Her?" that's quite comparable to "Eve" regarding a South Korea that hardly even has a pretense of equity and justice anymore. Soo-jae herself is the closest thing to an inspiring story, with her passing the bar exam with only a high school education.

But even that isn't really a pleasant story. The script in "Why Her?" makes frequent reference to the fact that Chairman Choi (played by Huh Joon-ho) has been shepherding Soo-jae's career mainly because she's a great inspirational story. Well, that and the fact that she makes a whole lot of money for the firm. Also, Soo-jae's main professional competition for managing partner is Yeong-bae (played by Kim Sun-hyuk), who's a bit of an idiot in that he does dirty tricks very incompetently.

That's about the only real reason we have to root for Soo-jae at all so far is just that she's good at dirty tricks. This persists even when she meets So-yeong (played by Hong Ji-yoon), a rape victim with little hard evidence that she was a rape victim at all but plenty of circumstantial evidence that could be used to smear her character. Once again, So-yeong herself is unpleasant enough that Soo-jae's behavior didn't feel like crossing a red line, even if I still didn't like Soo-jae either.

But do I really need to like Soo-jae herself to like "Why Her?" overall. Well, maybe not. There's no denying that the drama is plenty engaging, in part because it's hard to guess what the story is driving at. I might have thought the scandal forcing Soo-jae into exile was staged somehow. Yet none of her political opponents at the law firm seem evil enough or smart enough to want to do something like that. 

Review by William Schwartz

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"Why Her?" is directed by Park Soo-jin-II, written by Kim Ji-eun-III, and features Seo Hyun-jin, Hwang In-youp, Huh Joon-ho, Bae In-hyuk, Ji Seung-hyun, Lee Joo-woo. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2022/06/03~Now airing, Fri, Sat 22:00 on Coupang Play, SBS.