Four Times the Same Person

The IU Series on Netflix Nobody Mentions When They Talk About Her Best Performance

There are people who only know one version of you. Your boss knows who you are at nine in the morning. Your mother knows who you were at twelve. Your first love kept a version of you that no longer exists. None of them are wrong. They each caught a different moment of something that never stopped moving. And you, who have been all of those, sometimes don’t know which one is the real one.

Persona (2019) is a Korean anthology series on Netflix made up of four independent short films, each directed by a different director. The only thread connecting them is Lee Ji-eun, living a life seen through four different pairs of eyes. Four women. Four worlds. The same face looking out from completely different places.

Imagine walking at night through a quiet neighborhood. Talking about love, death, the things you carry without knowing exactly why. As if you were inside a black and white film of your own life. There are moments where you go quiet. And that silence touches something in you — not because it’s dramatic, but because you recognize it. That’s exactly what it feels like to watch the last episode of this series.

In Glassthere’s a character named Patricia. Sophisticated, polished, gentle in her manners. And secretly the one who carries everything the others can’t hold. She’s the version that shows up when the rest can’t. Everyone blames her. Nobody chooses her. We all have a Patricia — that internal character we blame when we do something that doesn’t fit the image we’ve built of ourselves. Persona isn’t about IU. It’s about that version of you that nobody believes exists. Not even you sometimes.

And when you finish the last one you’ll be left with a single question: how many versions of yourself are you still carrying to protect yourself, and how many are just weighing you down?