‘The Art of Sarah’ follows Sarah Kim (Shin Hye-sun), a woman who wants to become a luxury icon―even if it’s fake―and Mu-gyeong (Lee Jun-hyuk), who tracks her ambitions. Park plays Jung Yeo-jin, the CEO of beauty brand Nox, a woman who ultimately chooses desire to avoid being pushed out of high society’s front door.
From Episode 1, Park stamps Jung Yeo-jin’s emotions clearly. On the surface, she’s a flawless CEO. But when she looks at Sarah Kim, you can see admiration, jealousy, and a deep void all at once. Her line, “That day, Sarah was perfectly perfect,” isn’t just a memory. It’s a confession of a complicated longing for a world she hasn’t reached. Park grounds it without exaggeration―just a slight tremble in her eyes and a measured pause in her breath.
Jung Yeo-jin’s desire soon turns into concrete choices. At a VIP gathering, she snaps, “Gyeol? Is that really all?” It’s a split second where pride and fury collide. The way she swallows humiliation in front of class, the way she holds her head high while tamping down anger―those choices lay her inner life bare. Desire doesn’t scream, but it pulses on screen.
By Episode 5, Jung Yeo-jin is at the center of the storm. With a 15 billion won investment dividend on the line and Sarah Kim’s survival in question, she makes a decision based on judgment, not emotion. Her statement―“There was no harm done to me”―upends the premise of the investigation. Refusing to stay a victim and standing as an investor flips the character’s direction and reshapes the narrative itself.
Park maps this shift without showiness. Right after the explosive outburst―“You should’ve just died! Why are you alive!”―she moves through anger, resentment, calculation, and resignation in a heartbeat. A steadying breath. A flicker in her gaze. Even with tears welling, her eyes don’t crumble. Even as feelings shake, her posture holds. She closes the gap to a cool, clinical reset by changing only the temperature in her eyes. Filling the character’s interior with small expressions and silence instead of big gestures makes Jung Yeo-jin feel three-dimensional.
All episode long, Park rides the highs and lows of emotion with precision, calibrating the mood of each scene. From bright, high-tone ease to restrained elegance to raw instinct, her performance expands fluidly―like shifting octaves―making the character’s complexity pop.
Building on solid craft, Park has steadily broadened her range across projects, convincingly embodying different types of characters in titles like ‘Moon River,’ ‘Low Life,’ ‘Mother and Mom,’ and ‘Love Scout.’ That experience now fuels a fresh variation in ‘The Art of Sarah.’
Meanwhile, the Netflix series ‘The Art of Sarah’ debuted on Friday the 13th and has surged to No. 3 on the Global Top 10 Non-English Shows chart.
[Photo=Netflix]
(SBS Entertainment News | Kang Sun-ae)