Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
What would you do if you lived in a universe where there was a fool-proof way of finding out who your “soul mate” is? Well, I don’t know about you, but some people apparently straight up choose to ignore “the one”. Like the protagonist in the 2023 Thai fantasy-romance series “La Pluie”, who lives in a world where a select few suffer from an affliction that makes them temporarily deaf when it rains, however, they can hear and communicate with their soul-mates. “La Pluie” is the French word for rain. However, the plot is a little like Korean series “Color Rush”, where some people suffer from acute color-blindness, but can see the world in all its beautiful shades when they are around their soul-mate.
Spread over 12 episodes, the series stars Tanatorn Saenangkanikorn (known as ‘Title’) as the protagonist Saengtai, a young writer with a magazine, who doesn’t respond to his soulmate’s voice whenever it rains because he first hears it on the day his parents announce their divorce, despite being “soulmates” themselves. But a few years later, he starts to fall for a stranger, who turns out to be the same voice that had been reaching out to him every time it rained. Pee Peerawich Ploynumpol plays Dentist Pat, the charming dentist who wins Saengtai’s heart. However, their relationship faces some complications, obviously.
Honestly, I don’t know how to rate this one; it was somewhere between cute, sexy, and silly, but also – things get boring towards the end. The sibling relationship between Saengtai and his younger brother Saengthian (Suar Kritsanaphong Sripattiyanon) was the sweetest thing in the series. The brothers care and root for each other, and brownie points to the casting team since the actors really look like they are related and have an easy familial onscreen chemistry.
Ampere Suttatip Wutchaipradit plays Saengtai’s office best-friend Beau, an older but much chirpier character. She is quite entertaining in her bit part. Copter Nuntapong Wongsakulyong’s Lomfon is a very confusingly written character, who has a very contrived “enemies to friends” subplot with Saengthian and is thrust into Saengtai’s life too, creating a weak love triangle. The coincidences were jarring, and the twists unconvincing.
The cinematography is sunny and pleasing to the eye, and a section of the story is shot in a picturesque Thai village; the scenes from there were really pretty. Even some of the city scenes, including college campus shots are aesthetically pleasing, with the creators using a lot of white and pastel tones in their sets. While the chemistry between the leads as Pat and Saengtai is quite sizzling, the latter’s character is treated like a spoiled baby for most parts. Tanatorn Saenangkanikorn was endearing in “Remember Me,” the series, as the studious Champ, a supporting character; here his lead character Pat is poorly fleshed out; but Tanatorn’s piercingly expressive eyes make you feel like you are spending your time well. Pee Peerawich Ploynumpol on the other hand has a fairly well-written part as the older suave romantic lead and he sort of balances out Pat’s immaturity.
Even though, on the surface, “La Pluie” seems to be about this grand concept of “soulmates,” it tries to dismantle the idea by showing how relationships always come with their own sets of challenges, even when you’ve found the most “perfect” person in the world. However, at 12 episodes, the series is too long and should’ve been cut down to either 8 or a maximum of 10 episodes. Perhaps a consistent “sweet and sexy” theme would’ve worked better for the show, instead of forced complications in the story to make it more serious than it needed to be.
You can stream the series on iQIYI.