The Cliche

The Soap Opera We’re All Living In

I’ve seen this trick before. A film about making a soap opera, where the real world and the melodrama start to bleed together—it’s a gimmick that’s been done in everything from Tropic Thunder to Being John Malkovich. But The Cliche doesn’t just borrow the idea; it leans into it so hard it starts to feel like the film itself is a lakorn, Thailand’s beloved (and often ridiculed) brand of over-the-top television.

The question is whether it’s a sharp satire or just another cliché in disguise.

The premise is simple: a struggling content creator, played by Itkron Pungkiatrussamee, vandalizes a production company in a fit of frustration and is forced to settle his lawsuit by directing the very kind of lakorn he despises. What follows is a collision of worlds—his messy, unscripted life and the exaggerated, formulaic drama he’s now helming. The film’s tagline, "A tragic real life and a hilarious drama world," sells it as a comedy, but the tonal whiplash suggests something more interesting: a film that’s not sure whether it wants to mock lakorns or become one.

And that’s where The Cliche gets under your skin. Because it does become one. The cinematography, as some viewers have pointed out, is deliberately "sublime" in its mimicry of melodramatic television—all soft lighting, dramatic close-ups, and over-the-top emotional beats.

The film doesn’t just reference lakorn tropes; it performs them, complete with singing, dancing, and a plot that spirals into increasingly absurd territory. At times, it’s hard to tell if the film is laughing with the genre or at it. Maybe it’s both.