Directed by Yoon Ga-eun, The World of Love follows lively, outgoing teenager, Jooin (Seo Su-bin), as she navigates friendships, relationships, and a secret trauma she keeps hidden underneath her bubbly personality.
The World of Love starts off as a ‘regular’ coming of age story, a teenager experiencing young love, and their growing responsibilities at home. However, it soon turns its attention to the healing that is needed in this community.
On the outside, Jooin believes she has rebuilt her life pretty well and has not let a tragic event of her past define her. But as the film continues, what we see instead is that she has hidden her pain in silence. And it’s not just her. The film also shows how trauma affects multiple members of a community, even if the tragic event did not happen to them directly. Other characters in the film have a pain they mask in their own way, which deepens it in ways that are worse to deal with, or shows up in other ways.
At the end of it, honesty is what is needed to bring wholeness.
Seo Su-bin shines as Jooin in this film, playing really well into her bubbly exterior, her pain, her anger, and also her unrelenting optimism. The World of Love is a multi-layered film that brings a lot of heart to the trauma it exposes, and simultaneously carries a lot of hope in its story.
The World of Love is playing at TIFF ’25. For more information, click here.
