South Korean film “The World of Love” is simply extraordinary for how it is about as well as what it is about. As gradually and sensitively conveying to us its heroine’s inner struggle along the story, the movie will make you muse more on how she is, and you will come to care about her more while surprised and then touched by a sublime ending you will have to see for yourself.

At first, the movie phlegmatically follows the daily life of Ju-in (Seo Soo-bin), a 17-year-old female high school student who often looks irrepressibly plucky and forthright in front of everyone around her in the school. She seems pretty casual when she talks with her classroom teacher on what she wants to be, and we also see how she actively tries to have a more intimate moment with her current boyfriend.

In case of her family, Ju-in lives with her divorced mother and her younger brother in one small apartment. Her mother runs a little local kindergarten, and we come to gather that she has a serious drinking problem as shown from one moment early in the film. Her younger brother is as spirited as his older sister, and his earnest preparation for the presentation of his magic skills gives us some amusement at times.

We also get to know a bit about one of the male students in Ju-in’s class. This boy happens to have a little younger sister who is incidentally one of those kids in the kindergarten of Ju-in’s mother, and he is often quite concerned about his younger sister because their single father is usually too busy to pay attention to them. When a certain infamous sex criminal is going to return to the neighborhood after serving his rather short time in prison, he is naturally alarmed as much as many others in the neighborhood, so he decides to request his schoolmates to sign the petition against that sex criminal’s return.

However, Ju-in does not seem so interested in signing the petition, even though almost all of her schoolmates willingly do that in contrast. As he keeps asking for the sign from her, she becomes all the more adamant and annoyed for no apparent reason, and then she says something which makes everyone surprised and flabbergasted.

I will not go into detail into what follows next for not spoiling anything for you, but I can tell you instead that you will come to pay more attention to how she really is. She remains cheerful and bouncy as usual, but you will begin to sense more of how much she actually struggles to look like that on the surface, and you will also come to focus more on how she often gets emotional support from a certain local group. At first, they just look like a bunch of social service volunteers, but then there comes a moment to show us more of who they are, and that leads to more understanding on Ju-in.

And we also come to observe how Ju-in’s family silently struggles without telling much to Ju-in. As frequently feeling helpless about her daughter’s issues, Ju-in’s mother comes to depend more on drinking, and there is a bitter scene between Ju-in’s mother and her ex-husband, who has been estranged from his daughter as living away from his ex-wife and their kids during last several years. While Ju-in’s younger brother is a bit closer to their father, he later turns out to have a little matter he wants to hide from his older sister as long as possible.

The situation becomes more serious as a series of anonymous notes are sent to Ju-in, the movie never resorts to melodrama as tentatively observing how its heroine comes to find more will and strength from not only herself but also others around her. While her family keeps standing by her as before, those members of her support group always show her understanding and solidarity, and her several classmates turn out to be more considerate than expected, though they understandably struggle and fumble a bit in processing what they came to learn about her at that time.

With its sensitive handling of its story and characters, the screenplay by director/writer Yoon Ga-eun keeps us engaged to the end, and I particularly admire how it delivers the ending with genuine poignancy. As thinking more about this crucial moment, I came to reflect more on a certain social stigma associated with the subject of the story, and I also appreciated how thoughtfully it is presented while also being powerful enough to touch my heart.

 The movie certainly depends a lot on the presence and talent of its lead actress. Newcomer Seo Soo-bin is astounding as bringing an ample amount of life and personality to her complex human character, and I am sure that the movie will be a big starting point for her promising acting career. While Jang Hye-jin, who has mainly been known for her supporting turn in Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” (2019) but has also appeared in a number of other notable South Korean films including Yoon’s previous two feature films “The World of Us” (2016) and “The House of Us” (2019), is the most prominent one in the main cast, she dutifully supports Seo just like several other substantial supporting performers including Kim Jeong-sik, Kang Chae-yoon, Kim Ye-chang, and Go Min-si, and the special mention goes to young performer Lee Jae-hee, who steals every little moment of his in the film with his unadorned natural acting.

In conclusion, “The World of Us”, which was recently shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, is one of the best South Korean films of this year besides being another superlative work from Yoon. When “The World of Us” came out, I instantly embraced it and then chose it as the best South Korean film of 2016 without any hesitation, and I admired her talent more when she came back with “The House of Us” in 2019. In my trivial opinion, she makes another considerable advance with “The World of Love”, and she surely deserves to be recognized more as one of the most important South Korean filmmakers at present.