The film begins as a school drama about possible sexual harassment of a schoolgirl by a teacher, but it evolves into a psychological drama about the choices women make when they are still very young. South Korean cinema often turns to the theme of high school students, because this age is critical in the formation of a young person. This applies to films about students striving to study hard to enter a prestigious university, such as Pluto (2012), or about school bullying, like After My Death (2017). Director Yoo Jae-In’s En Route to tells the story of schoolgirls who encounter the difficulties of their f irst intimacy with men. At first, it seems like this will be a social drama about a teacher sexually harassing a student, and you expect an investigation in the spirit of the American film Sorry, Baby (2025, dir. Eva Viktor), which was shown at Sundance IFF. But this theme is gently neutralized, thus showing that the film is not about that. The main character, Yoon-ji, is distressed because she became pregnant by her married teacher, Jong seong, but is ready to do anything he says just to make him come back. Her  roommate comforts her with the cliché phrase, “You’re born alone, you die alone.” The action takes place in a boarding school, so it is clear that all the girls come from incomplete families, and Yoon-ji apparently has no parents at all. As time passes, the missing teacher is sought not only by the school but also by his wife, who usually visits him on weekends from another city. But for Yoon-ji, the main concern is to have an abortion. She steals money from her roommate to buy illegal pills online. Thus, the story is about two girls: one wants to have an abortion, and the other - her roommate accompanies her everywhere. It is also a story about money, which they lack for a proper hospital procedure. For Yoo Jae-In, this is a directorial debut, and in Busan’s competition program it will be quite difficult to compete with films that have already been winners or participants at Locarno, Cannes, Venice, and Toronto. But the director’s cross-genre approach, unusual script twists, and very convincing acting make the f ilm emotional and memorable. This is why a seemingly minor episode is so important: the pregnant friend So-yul’s boyfriend comes back. It’s literally a two-minute scene, placed at the “golden ratio” of the film, at the 82-minute mark. In En Route to, men are almost absent: no fathers, no husbands, no beloveds, not even boyfriends for the girls to love. The teacher, the main male character, is dead. Other male teachers are insignificant. Thus, the film shows at least five female destinies and almost no male ones. This is why the voice of So-yul’s boyfriend is so poignant - we don’t even see him (!). He cries: “I’m back! I didn’t know! I was taken for military service! Forgive me! I’ll always be with you!” It sounds like a dream of a real man. It’s about the trust with which a woman opens herself to a man. Not by chance, the first and last shots of the film are in darkness: the trajectory of female destiny is defined in the night’s darkness. Yet children must grow up in the sunlight, in the brightness of day.