Lovers Anonymous Season 1 Review: An opposites attract brand of romantic dramedy turned on its head

Umur Turagay’s Turkish romantic comedy-drama series starts off with all the tropes of an opposites attract cliché, but somehow, during the course of its eight-episode first season, it gradually challenges this notion and your mind. It is disarmingly funny in parts and deeply insightful in others. And despite the initial episode or two, Lovers Anonymous isn’t nearly as straightforward as it seems. It is in that subtle unpredictability, courtesy of its two diametrical lead characters and the varied patients who walk through their door for treatment, where the crux lies. The treatment is for those afflicted by matters of the heart, where love has worn them down, confused them, or broken them altogether. Now, this institution called the Love Hospital is not exactly a place of traditional medicine (because how can one exactly cure the madness of love?) nor is it a haven for mental health (a psychiatric clinic or facility). It is a pseudoscientific organisation that employs various diagnostic tools (ECGs, brain scans, blood testing, and the like) to ascertain one’s oxytocin and dopamine levels. There’s an anger room to lay out one’s frustrations and a sleep room to regulate the circadian cycle. Just enough there to take the measurement of love and lust seriously, I suppose. But as love is often called blind, the overpowering belief in its worth takes it one step further. Enter Cem (Halit Ergenç), the eccentric brain behind the Love Hospital. 

Director – Umur Turagay

Cast - Halit Ergenç, Funda Eryigit, Zerrin Nisanci, Selçuk Borak, Riza Kocaoglu, Idil Firat, Ceren Benderlioglu

Streaming On - Netflix

If there was ever an opposite of a die-hard romantic, he would be your guy. A cynic tied down by social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive traits, germaphobia, and hypochondria, he is of the opinion that love is all about the mind. The butterflies in one’s stomach, or the intense effect of this complex emotion on a person’s psyche, can be clearly explained by brain chemistry. In his view, a person can overcome heartache quite easily, so long as the body receives the requisite push. There’s no magic to love, period. It’s all science. His worldview stems from a fractured childhood, where, as a young boy, he bore witness to his mother committing adultery. He thus idealises his father, not accounting for the man’s likely flaws. Needless to say, he also shares a Freudian obsession with his mother. He claims he can’t stand her but secretly craves her approval. The mother, in turn, doesn’t have a good word to say about her now middle-aged son (though she keeps pestering him with phone calls to check if he’s okay). It’s a dysfunctional heap that has led Cem to the conclusion that love is a farce that needs immediate intervention. All seems to be going well at the ever-popular Love Hospital when the fake doctor filling in for Cem dies in a freak accident. Cem’s mentor and principal funder, Halil Emre (Selçuk Borak), wonders if his protégé has it in him to assume the lead. But before Cem can overcome his anxiety, the former’s estranged daughter, Hazal (Funda Eryigit), makes a surprise visit. And before you know it, she ends up saving one of the clients from jumping off the hospital’s water tank. In full view of the TV media, he declares her to be the real Cem Taskin. Hazal thinks the whole setup at Love Hospital is phoney. She believes that love is not an illness but a cure-all and that it is the purest thing to flow from the heart. Halil refuses to take Cem’s protests into consideration, and Hazal is made to sit in on joint sessions. She may suffer from deep-rooted abandonment issues concerning her dad, but Hazal takes the new assignment up as a challenge.

What makes the show most engaging is the drawing up of a multitude of characters (with interesting backstories) who visit the Love Hospital for consultation. There are those whose lives it has complicated and others whose existence it has wrecked, and they’re all looking for answers, for closure. Be it a relationship between an actor and an only fans type model with a baby (the latter is worried to share with him what she does for a living out of fear and shame); the woman stuck in a loveless marriage receiving attention from a young poet; a famous older director refusing to publicly acknowledge his affair with a younger actress (as far as attachment types go, he is avoidant and she is anxious); a virginal young man being pressurised by his family to have an arranged marriage even though he is besotted by his trainer; a male sleep escort who is contacted by clients who suffer from severe insomnia; a promiscuous young woman who fails to utter a word; or a highly dramatic, middle-aged designer couple who share a fiery, love-hate bond; it is all riveting to watch. At first, there is intense competition between Cem and Hazal to prove that their approach is the correct one, almost coming off as good cop–bad cop to the client. Cem undermines Hazal constantly, feeling she knows nothing. He is certain that her sole purpose is to disrupt the hospital’s functioning. Hazal observes Cem’s many nervous tics as a manifestation of childhood trauma and failed relationships. She will continue to dig until she has adequate evidence for her hypothesis. To add to it, Cem’s bookish, introverted persona is pitted against Hazal’s larger-than-life nature. The humorous back-and-forth and the sketching of unique characters (being treated by the ‘odd couple’) have one thing to thank—and that’s the writing. The show may start off with a hint of cliché, but it is in the characters (central and supporting) we must invest in in order to see the novelty of the situation. Lovers Anonymous takes a tried-and-tested formula of the opposites attract brand of romantic comedy-drama and turns it on its head. The show wholeheartedly deserves a subsequent season!