Full review in English · GL SERIES ITALIA
Enemies with Benefits (@EWB_Series) remains engaging largely because of its two leads: Jan Ployshompoo Supasap (@janhae) as Lal and JingJing Prariyapit Yu (@Jingjingyu362) as Wine. Both give convincing performances, share excellent chemistry, and manage to make a relationship weakened by inconsistent writing feel believable. Their dynamic carries the romantic scenes and lends emotional weight even to the show’s less successful moments.
Up until episode 7, the drama maintains a solid pace and a reasonably compelling sense of progression. The story moves forward, the conflicts create tension, and the relationship between Lal and Wine keeps the audience invested. For much of its run, the series even appears to avoid the sluggish pacing and repetition that so often undermine GMMTV’s GL productions (@GMMTV).
As the season progresses, however, the weaknesses in the writing become increasingly difficult to ignore. The plot begins to pile on conflicts, reactions, and complications that add little to the characters’ development and seem designed primarily to make the story feel more substantial than it really is. Rather than creating complexity, they weigh the narrative down with contrived situations and unnecessary detours.
This becomes particularly obvious in the extended crying scenes, which in some episodes take up more than twenty minutes without producing any meaningful narrative development. The characters’ emotions are repeatedly underlined through lingering close-ups, prolonged silences, and entire sequences built around their suffering.
Their emotional state is already perfectly clear within the first few minutes. Dragging the scene out does not make the pain more powerful; it simply diminishes its impact and tests the audience’s patience. A dramatic sequence should lead to a decision, a realisation, or a shift in the relationship between the characters. Here, pain is often treated as an end in itself, as though screen time alone were enough to create emotional depth.
This is particularly frustrating because Jan and JingJing are more than capable of conveying complex emotions without such heavy-handed direction. Instead of trusting their performances, the staging overwhelms scenes that would have been far more effective with greater restraint, turning melodrama into emotional repetition.
After episode 7, the series falls back into some of GMMTV’s most predictable habits: forced conflicts, inconsistent character behaviour, and decisions driven not by believable psychology but by whatever the plot needs to happen next.
One of the clearest examples is Wine getting drunk in front of the man who harassed her. The scene is difficult to reconcile with what she has experienced or with the heightened awareness such a situation would naturally provoke. She willingly allows herself to lose control in the presence of someone who poses a threat to her, yet the script offers no convincing psychological explanation for that decision.
The sequence appears to exist solely to make Wine vulnerable and force a particular development. Her trauma is acknowledged when it can be used to generate drama, then disregarded when it becomes inconvenient to the plot. It is an alarmingly superficial way to handle such a sensitive subject.
From a directorial and technical standpoint, Enemies with Benefits has very little distinctive to offer. The direction by Tle Tawan Charuchinda and Arisa Wawwanjit is largely functional: it records the events without developing a recognisable visual identity or using the camera as a meaningful storytelling tool.
The romantic scenes work primarily because of the chemistry between Jan Ployshompoo Supasap and JingJing Prariyapit Yu, while the dramatic sequences rely too heavily on lingering close-ups, tears, and overly insistent music. The cinematography is competent but anonymous, the framing rarely leaves an impression, and the production as a whole lacks any truly memorable visual choices.
There is little evidence of a strong directorial vision or an aesthetic approach capable of elevating the material. This remains one of the most persistent weaknesses in GMMTV’s GL output: the assumption that a compelling central pairing can carry an entire project without equally strong writing, direction, or visual storytelling around them.
Enemies with Benefits is still entertaining for much of its runtime. Lal and Wine work as a couple, the leads are charismatic, and the story retains a degree of momentum until the seventh episode. After that, however, the series gradually loses its footing and slips back into slow, contrived, and increasingly implausible storytelling.
Jan and JingJing compensate for many of the production’s shortcomings, but even they cannot fully disguise a screenplay that repeatedly mistakes melodrama for depth, narrative clutter for complexity, and the length of a scene for emotional impact.
This is not a good series elevated by two excellent actresses.
It is a mediocre series saved by two excellent actresses.