If you are a male or female who has ever had a childhood crush, this story is too familiar. Architecture 101 will take you through a painful, realistic, and gut-wrenching memoir of growing up next to the childhood love of your life - those best days of your life. However, I have just one major gripe that ruined the movie for me.
The acting and dialogue are candid, the cinematography beautiful, and the tragic moments are (in the Korean dramatic fashion) unapologetically tragic. It is not the type of movie to make you cry outright, but it will make you breathe quickly and feel a deep, naive longing. The thing that ruined the movie for me is this: in one of the scenes, a drunk girl is presumably taken advantage of while a boy who is watching not only does nothing to confront the aggressor, but leaves the scene and cries about his misfortunes of liking her with one of his friends, who consequently calls her worse than a w****. Doesn't that make you cringe? It's appalling how this scene isn't rectified; if it had been, Architecture 101 would be one of my favorite movies. Otherwise, it makes me uncomfortable to recommend something that advertises such a cowardly and misogynistic action. So if you feel like there was maybe a little something off about that scene, please know that you are not alone.
Would-be 8/10, but marked down for the reasons above.
And for the would-be haters, I am a 19 y.o. male (not that it makes a difference to my review).
6/10
The acting and dialogue are candid, the cinematography beautiful, and the tragic moments are (in the Korean dramatic fashion) unapologetically tragic. It is not the type of movie to make you cry outright, but it will make you breathe quickly and feel a deep, naive longing. The thing that ruined the movie for me is this: in one of the scenes, a drunk girl is presumably taken advantage of while a boy who is watching not only does nothing to confront the aggressor, but leaves the scene and cries about his misfortunes of liking her with one of his friends, who consequently calls her worse than a w****. Doesn't that make you cringe? It's appalling how this scene isn't rectified; if it had been, Architecture 101 would be one of my favorite movies. Otherwise, it makes me uncomfortable to recommend something that advertises such a cowardly and misogynistic action. So if you feel like there was maybe a little something off about that scene, please know that you are not alone.
Would-be 8/10, but marked down for the reasons above.
And for the would-be haters, I am a 19 y.o. male (not that it makes a difference to my review).
6/10