Paint With Love – Quick Review

By Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

A hoity-toity greedy media agency head hires a free-spirited artist for an event, and the two start an uncomfortable working relationship that evolves into a cozier equation. That’s the primary plot of the Thai series “Paint With Love”.

Directed by Peed Panchapong Kongkanoi & Not Pongsatorn Thongjaroen, the series heavily rests on the shoulders of Singto Prachaya and Tae Darvid, the lead actors, who play Maze and Phap. The intro music along with the stop-motion art is catchy and sets the mood for the comedic drama. Singto Prachaya, who is usually Mr Goody-Two-Shoes, plays a strict bossy arrogant Maze with a lot of charm. However, it takes time to get warmed up to Tae Darvid’s Phap, an artist, whose character is played up in a very stereotypical manner – the artist in need of a muse, living in a whimsical house, with unpaid bills piling up, paint lying everywhere and a bunch of unusual pets including a rooster.

Along with the love-hate relationship between Phap and Maze, there’s also a secondary plot about two actors called Nueng (Pushanu Wongsavanischakorn) and Tharn (Surat Permpoonsavat) working in a BL series, one of who is managed by Maze’s company. This sub-plot was all over the place, had no fun elements at all and the chemistry was barely there. What makes it worse is that we literally know nothing about any of the characters, they are all too one-dimensional. Phap and Nueng are shown to be half-brothers with a complicated history, which is a source of lot of unnecessary misunderstandings for the other characters… and quite frustrating to watch for viewers! The character development is so shallow, if it were a swimming-pool, Phap’s rooster could swim in it.

The story does have a decent amount of funny moments, but fails to rise above tropes that are getting quite stale to see on screen. Unlike most series in its genre, the story is about working professionals, and yet, we see the same ‘miscommunication’ conflict causing problems for the protagonists. While petty fights and ego-tussles are fine in high-school settings, watching a bunch of adults behave like annoying teens isn’t very entertaining. I lost complete interest in the show by episode 10 but eventually did see the closing episodes. They were cliched and barely bearable. The unimaginative script pretty much ruins the show.

It’s a 5.5/10 from me.