Borrowing the famous opening line of Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina—’All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’—one might say that unhappiness may look similar, but no two cases are ever the same. Happiness is when every piece of the puzzle fits perfectly, while unhappiness is characterized by the absence of a piece one cannot quite identify. Based on Baek Young-ok’s novel, Seven O’Clock Breakfast Club for the Brokenhearted, is a story about searching for those missing and lost pieces. As the title suggests, there is a gathering where people nursing heartbreak meet at seven in the morning to share breakfast and watch breakup-themed films together. They also exchange keepsakes from their past relationships and tell their stories. Among them are flight attendant Sa-gang (Suzy), who has just broken up with her partner, and consultant-lecturer Ji-hoon (Lee Jin-uk). The film follows people who have not been able to fully let go after a breakup, revisiting their stories from multiple perspectives and opening a channel for empathy. What sets apart this universal story and familiar characters is the vitality of the actors’ performances. Adding to this, director Lim Sun-ae brings delicate nuance by focusing not on explaining the characters’ situations but on observing the reverberations of their emotions, breathing life into the stories of others. What should we do when the past, unresolved, continues to speak to the present? Rather than offering mechanical comfort, the film urges us to reflect on how to face the traces left behind after love has ended. It carries the power to make us contemplate these remnants together. (SONG Kyung-won)