Korean title: Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness (모두가 자신의 무가치함과 싸우고 있다)
Written by Park Hae-young and Directed by Cha Young-hoon
Production companies: Studio Phoenix, SLL & Studio Flow
Rating: ★★★★★

There are names that do not merely appear in the credits. They linger. They begin to shape the way you read stories, and sometimes even the way you read people. Park Hae-young is one of those writers for me. She wrote My Mister and My Liberation Notes, two dramas dear to my heart that helped me move deeper into South Korean storytelling. There is something in her work that keeps returning to people living just outside the expectations placed on them, and still, somehow, finding connection with someone who sees them clearly.

In We Are All Trying Here, one of the things that stayed with me most was the way the drama approaches feelings of worthlessness. It does not turn them into spectacle, but treats them as something ordinary and deeply human. That feels very consistent with her writing, almost like a continuation of the same emotional tone. I especially appreciate how slowly her characters grow. There are no easy resolutions or neatly happy endings, only the quiet effort of continuing on, even through uncertainty.

I am still trying to find the right way to write about what this drama stirs in me. Perhaps it begins with a line from Hwang Dong-man, portrayed by Koo Kyo-hwan: “Writing is like blood. You cannot transfer it unless it is the same type.”

This idea has stayed with me, especially amid ongoing conversations around artificial intelligence and creativity. Writing feels as personal as blood. Or perhaps it touches something deeper in my own writing and the struggles we writers go through. We recognize a voice not only through words, but through the way someone sees, feels, and thinks. It does not feel separable from the person who creates it. And perhaps that is where I pause when I think about AI and creativity, not as replacement, but as something that still does not fully carry the weight of a human voice.

At its core, the drama keeps returning to a simple but uncomfortable truth. People often hurt others while they are quietly losing their own private battles with themselves.

Hwang Dong-man is especially compelling because the series refuses to simplify him. He exists in that difficult middle space where noise and vulnerability meet. The film industry setting feels almost symbolic, inviting reflection on unrealized potential, artistic insecurity, fear of mediocrity, and the quiet effort of emotional survival. The long-standing friendships among the group carry a familiar, delicate mix of affection and irritation, loyalty and envy, support and exhaustion. People remain bound together because they knew each other before success or failure had taken on clear meaning.

Throughout, there is a quiet performance of confidence, as if adulthood itself has become a careful system of emotional camouflage. The drama does not romanticize artistic ambition. Instead, it gently asks what happens when talent, passion, and effort do not necessarily bring recognition. It is a sobering question, especially for those who have spent years inside that uncertainty. The black comedy element deepens this feeling rather than softening it.

Park Hae-young uses awkward humor to expose emotional pain, creating moments where the audience laughs and then almost immediately senses the weight behind that laughter. That tonal shift feels deeply human.

And perhaps the most lingering takeaway is this: the drama suggests that people do not need to become extraordinary in order to deserve dignity. Everyone is trying here. Even the loudest, most insecure, and most emotionally tangled characters are still trying to survive their own sense of inadequacy.

Image courtesy of JTBC