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James Marsh

3/5 stars
Lead cast: Kim Go-eun, Park Ji-hyun
As the adage goes, with friends like these, who needs enemies? This certainly applies to the female protagonists of You and Everything Else.
In the new limited K-drama series on Netflix, Kim Go-eun (Little Women) and Park Ji-hyun (Flex X Cop) play childhood friends whose love-hate relationship suffers through all manner of challenges and rivalries over the course of several decades.


Written by Song Hye-jin (The Smile Has Left Your Eyes) and directed by Jo Young-min (Do You Like Brahms?), this unabashedly melodramatic roller coaster chronicles their lives as they are repeatedly torn apart and thrown back together through a series of life’s challenges – some unavoidable, others very much of their own making.
When first introduced, television writer Ryu Eun-jung (Kim) is thanked unexpectedly in an awards show acceptance speech by acclaimed film producer Cheon Sang-yeon (Park).
When questioned by a colleague, Eun-jung reveals that, although now estranged, she and Sang-yeon have known each other for most of their lives.
Sang-yeon then appears out of the blue and reveals she has terminal cancer, and asks Eun-jung to accompany her to Switzerland, where she plans to undergo assisted suicide.

Blindsided by this revelation, Eun-jung recollects their decades-long relationship, from middle school in the early 1990s up to the present day.
Thrown together when two schools merged, impoverished Eun-jung was instantly enamoured by her wealthy, intelligent classmate. She was equally taken by Sang-yeon’s family members, specifically her mother, Ms Yeon (Seo Jung-yeon), also a teacher at their school, and her older brother Sang-hak (Kim Jae-won).
A sensitive young man, Sang-hak awakens Eun-jung’s interest in photography, even gifting her a vintage Leica camera, and the teenager is forever smitten.
An unspeakable tragedy sends Eun-jung and Sang-yeon on divergent paths, but a few years later, the former’s love for photography inspires her to join the photography club at her university.

There she meets handsome club secretary Kim Sang-hak (Kim Gun-woo), who shares the same name as her first love. Just as they start dating, Sang-yeon reappears, also enrols and similarly takes a liking to Sang-hak.
This complicated love triangle dominates the trio’s college years, triggering repeated clashes between the two friends, even after Sang-hak departs for military service.
This fractious dynamic resurfaces a decade later. Eun-jung is working as a movie producer and reluctantly agrees to hire Sang-hak, now a respected cinematographer, for her latest project.
But when the director is unexpectedly switched out at the eleventh hour, the incoming replacement insists that his own producer work alongside Eun-jung – none other than Sang-yeon.

The present-day portion of the show immediately recalls Pedro Almodóvar’s 2024 film The Room Next Door, in which Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore play estranged friends reunited by the prospect of assisted suicide.
In You and Everything Else, however, this portion of the story only comes into play during the series’ cathartic feature-length finale. The rest of the drama unspools first as a childhood tale of burgeoning friendship and first love, then as a college romance, and later as a workplace drama.
At the centre of everything is the potent rivalry between two emotionally codependent friends who betray, backstab and lie to one another persistently.
The script is unnecessarily repetitive, replaying almost every pivotal altercation in flashback immediately after it happens, in case the audience needs reminding that something important has just taken place.

Many of the dramatic confrontations materialise out of contrived misunderstandings or characters simply – and somewhat inexplicably – refusing to tell the truth or discuss their feelings.
The fate of Sang-yeon’s brother in particular has a profound impact on many characters across numerous episodes, only to be entirely discarded following a not-so-shocking revelation.
Eun-jung is especially exasperating; she is always on the defensive, answering every question with another question and never standing up for what she wants. Sang-yeon, conversely, bulldozes through every situation with an almost sociopathic lack of empathy.
As the object of both women’s affections, Sang-hak stokes the rivalry simply by existing, despite lacking much genuine allure.

Despite all this, Kim and Park’s committed performances ultimately save this meandering and often infuriating odyssey, even as their behaviour provokes copious hair-pulling and vitriolic shouting at the screen.
They infuse the viewer with an undeniable compulsion to bear witness to whether their lifelong feud will end in reconciliation or apocalyptic annihilation. And tissues should be standing by.
You and Everything Else is streaming on Netflix.


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Kim Go-eun (left) as television writer Ryu Eun-jung and Park Ji-hyun as film producer Cheon Sang-yeon in a still from You and Everything Else. The Netflix Korean drama centres on the friends’ rivalry and betrayal of one another. Photo: Netflix

Park Ji-hyun (left) and Kim Go-eun in a still from You and Everything Else. Photo: Netflix

Kim Go-eun (left) and Kim Gun-woo in a still from You and Everything Else. Photo: Netflix

Kim Go-eun (left) and Park Ji-hyun in a still from You and Everything Else. Photo: Netflix

Kim Go-eun in a still from You and Everything Else. Photo: Netflix

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Kim and Park star as lifelong friends whose bitter rivalry erupts into conflict at every turn in this melodramatic and infuriating K-drama


Kim and Park star as lifelong friends whose bitter rivalry erupts into conflict at every turn in this melodramatic and infuriating K-drama.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Kim and Park star as lifelong friends whose bitter rivalry erupts into conflict at every turn in this melodramatic and infuriating K-drama

Kim and Park star as lifelong friends whose bitter rivalry erupts into conflict at every turn in this melodramatic and infuriating K-drama