Every one of the twelve reviews is positive, and most are warmly so. Critics agree that the eight-part adaptation is both large and small: a family followed across four generations, told through close, particular moments rather than sweep. The praise settles on the performances above all, especially the three actors sharing Sunja, with Kim Minha as the young woman and Youn Yuh-jung as her older self named again and again. The fractured, intercut timeline is singled out as often, credited with tying the generations together without losing the thread, and several reviews note the direction and the score.
The reservations are few and mild. The Guardian finds the number of storylines overloading at times, and /Film, the least enthusiastic, still calls it stirring while describing it as a streamlined and earnest version of the novel. Nobody dissents on the central performances. The spread is narrow, and the argument among critics is not whether it is good but how good.