Something in the Rain, perils of a young woman in Asian society, and a love like sudden showers

Movies and shows, old and new, have helped us to live vicariously through them. They have allowed us to travel far and wide at a time borders are shut and people are restricted to homes. In our new column What’s In A Setting, we explore the inseparable association of a story with its setting, how the location complements the narrative, and how these cultural windows to the world have helped broaden our imagination.

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When I first watched Something in the Rain in 2018, I wished for a love like Joon-hee’s (played by a disarmingly charming Jung Hae-in). Little did I know then that in three years, I would not just find it but get him to watch the show to tell him how he makes me feel. Now that I look back at how I met him and how it all happened, I cannot help but wonder if I subconsciously willed it all into existence as I quietly watched the Netflix series night after night when the going got too tough.

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With numerous female celebrities dating (and getting married to) men several years younger than them, romances between older women and younger men have found their way into mainstream discourse. But such relationships are yet to find favour among the genteel, reputation-cautious bourgeois, especially in Asian countries like India and South Korea. Funnily, it’s not just the parents, grandparents, aunties, and uncles that mind. I once told my younger brother about a guy I met on a trip to the mountains. Since he was several years my junior, my brother laughed and called me a “cougar.” Until then, I didn’t know what the word meant. My sibling was kind enough to explain. When I asked him if there was a similar term for men who like younger women, he didn’t know.

It’s uncanny how several threads of Jin-ah’s (played with commendable restraint and maturity by Son Ye-jin) life intertwine with my own. Any working Asian woman who is 26 or older and still single would relate. The list of her daily struggles is nothing out of the ordinary. It is filled with the regulars — the pressure to get married to someone of impressive social standing, nagging parents (one of them is usually sympathetic though; in Jin-ah’s case, it’s her father, in mine, it’s my mum), workplace harassment, girlfriends as close as sisters, and finding love where you least expect it after you’ve given up all hope.

[caption id=“attachment_9796031” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A still from Something in The Rain. Courtesy of JTBC/Netflix[/caption]

Something in the Rain could easily have been a banal love story. It has all the usual tropes — gorgeous leads, dreamy cinematography, fantastic music, and a story that you’ve heard, watched or read countless times. However, it’s anything but hackneyed. In its depiction of Jin-ah and Joon-hee’s romance, the show explores the universal but thorny themes of societal hypocrisies, parental boundaries, office politics, everyday sexism, and heartbreak. And it does all of this with such detail, sensitivity, and honesty, that the narrative informs the viewer of the South Korean way of life.

In most Asian communities, if you don’t get married by a certain age, your parents consider it a personal failure. More so if you’re a woman. And they don’t forget to rub it in every chance they get. Moreover, people who grow up without one or both parents aren’t considered fit candidates for matrimony. Through his lead pair and their families, director Ahn Pan-seok addresses these social taboos with a lot of thought and care.

He also lets you in on several important cultural mores of South Korea. For instance, food. We Asians take our meals very seriously. The show’s characters are eating all the time — be it with family, friends, colleagues, on dates, or during team dinners. It’s also worth noting that the series is rather reserved in its show of skin. Something in the Rain is full of young women but they almost never wear short skirts, tank tops or low-cut dresses. Even when Jin-ah and Joon-hee have sex for the first time, they are fully covered in a quilt. All you see is Jin-ah’s foot.

Despite being picked up by Netflix and garnering immense popularity worldwide, the show has not been dubbed in English. Much like Bong Joon-ho’s seminal 2019 film Parasite, which made the world take notice of South Korea, the show is in Korean; all you have are subtitles. And you’re glad for it. Characters speaking their native language help viewers connect with them at a personal, primal level.

What I also love about the series is its use of rain as a motif. When it was telecast in South Korea, it had the title Bap Jal Sajuneun Yeppeun Nuna, which translates in English to “Pretty Sister Who Buys Me Food.” It was named Something in the Rain for Netflix. They couldn’t have found a title more apt. Rain plays so significant a role in Jin-ah and Joon-hee’s love story that it is almost like a recurring character. Whether it is them going out on their first date, getting physically intimate for the first time, breaking up, or reuniting, there’s always rain — in one form or the other.

On the surface, Something in the Rain might pass off as a girl-meets-boy romance. But look closely, and you’ll find that it’s a carefully constructed bildungsroman— the story of how Jin-ah finds love, and through it, herself.

Jin-ah’s journey to self-actualisation reminds me a lot of Noah Baumbach’s brilliant 2012 coming-of-age film Frances Ha. Both Frances and Jin-ah seem to tell that no matter what people say or expect, we (especially women) should never consider ourselves too old to dare to live the lives we want. It’s foolish to put an expiry date to finding love, a worthwhile career, and ourselves. And we shouldn’t.

Love can come knocking anytime, anywhere — at a Christmas party as you dance the night away or in front of your office building as you prepare for yet another long day. Just don’t hesitate to open the door when it does.

Read more from the What’s in a Setting series here .