I went into My Love, My Bride with very little expectations. I thought it would be a cute romantic comedy, but silly me skipped right over the 'melodrama' tag.

The film does start off as a cute romance movie. There are loads of adorable moments and it helps that the main actors have great chemistry. We see the beginnings of the crack in the relationship, but our couple powers through and moves onto the honeymoon stage. This is where things begin to get dicey and the nicely laid foundation starts to fall apart and show that it is not all about romance, but human mistakes that can cost a relationship.

To its core, My Love, My Bride is a movie about how to make a relationship work and the mistakes one can make while in anger or misunderstanding. It doesn't do the best job at showing this as one the biggest mistakes is glossed over and never spoke of or brought to the attention of the other person. It essentially becomes no big deal and solidifies that it is okay to not tell your partner/spouse about what happened as long as your love becomes/is sincere.
That is the thing I dislike most about this film. I don't like lies, especially lies that aren't technically lies if you don't guess the truth.

The other thing that had my gears in a twist is what caused this chain of events (thus 'justifying' things to come): Mi Young meeting a coworker while she and her husband were on a date (as the in the summary). Even though Mi Young assures her husband, Young Min, that he is just a coworker and yet Young Min still dreams up false scenarios. In which we get the idea that men and women can't be friends without thoughts of sex or flirtation. See why my gears are grinding?

The characters are not flawless. They each have their own flaws. Mi Young, the wife, nags about housekeeping (if you can call that a flaw), and Young Min, the husband, is self centered, quick to ignore and say hurtful things. There's lots of bickering and makeups as the characters struggle to do the right thing and most often than not the wrong thing is said before the right thing is found.

Despite the miscommunication between characters (which would have solved everything), the movie is actually good. It lagged some in the middle and picked back up in strength toward the end. Don't go in expecting some feel good romantic comedy. You won't find that here. What you will find is a romance movie that becomes less about romance and more about the mistakes humans make while in love and the heartache that can come with it.

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Note: I went into TTILY without knowing it was a remake of 'In Time With You', nor have I watched ITWY.

Now that I know this drama was a remake, I can see why it suffered from a sort of identity crisis in the beginning. In the first few episodes it was dramatic, exaggerated, and struggled for solid footing. Couple that with weird flashback scenes (that I did come to enjoy!) and I was thoroughly confused. It flipped-flopped from being over-dramatic to a seeming like a drama that had been on for a while. (This is most likely because at this point in the characters lives they've known each other for over 17 years.) Eventually it does gain its footing at the expense of (sadly) plot, where it once again goes off course.

Ha Ji Won is great actress, but her role as Oh Ha Na seemed a little forced at times (or maybe overacted is the better term?). It mainly stems from having to act overly cute and talk in that silly baby voice. It was great, however, to see a successful woman and have others recognize that. Not to mention most of her wardrobe was spectacular and she looked gorgeous. None of this negates that maybe this wasn't the best role of Ha Ji Won, but she worked with what she had.

Not much to say about Lee Jin Wook other than he really melted into the role of Choi Won and convinced me that he was a friend who had been in love with Oh Ha Na for a very long time. Only problem is that he started to go a little out of character toward the end (and I'll also throw in a mention to that terrible middle part hairstyle).

Chemistry wise, they definitely had it, but I felt Ha Ji Won was holding back at times. I especially liked their easygoing banter and their ability to understand one another, the actors really did a great job there and it was truly the force that held this drama together. Sadly, kiss scenes were a little stale on Ha Ji Won's side as she never moved her lips (though this particularly nothing new with kdramas), so no, this drama doesn't have steamy kisses, though it does have lots of them.

Unfortunately, this drama suffered when introducing Yoon Kyun Sang as Cha Seo Hoo. I felt like I was in limbo watching Oh Ha Na make relationship decisions. That whole side plot seemed unnecessary and just added extra episodes, filler episodes that is. I'll go ahead and say the drama was way too long and the ending was just for fan gratuity (yes, those last two were thick as sugar and I suffered through them).

Had this drama strictly been about the main couple and side characters it would have been so much better. I found myself questioning everything that was Cha Seo Hoo and watched it solely for the interactions between Oh Ha Na and Choi Won.
The Time We Were Not in Love is NOT a bad drama, it just tried to be a lot of things at once and got lost. Ha Ji Won and Lee Jin Wook really carried this drama on their backs with their chemistry and personal story, and that was enough to make me continue watching.

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