by Robert Bouffard, Editor
People change, grow, and evolve throughout the years. We develop new tastes and interests, and abandon some that used to be important to us. And sometimes, there’s a part of us that persists, even if we subconsciously bury it under years — or even decades — of new memories, experiences, or feelings.
That’s where we find Nora (Greta Lee) at the beginning of Past Lives. She has immigrated twice: once from South Korea to Canada, and once from Canada to New York City. She’s always been a dreamer — at different points in her life, she’s wanted to win a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, and a Tony Award — which stands in stark contrast to Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), who has an everyday job and has stayed in South Korea his whole life.
But Nora and Hae Sung, despite their differences, are connected by the childhood crushes they had on each other, and by the love they still share for each other, which initially exists in radically different states of their consciousnesses. Nora struggles to even remember Hae Sung’s name when she’s looking up old friends on Facebook with her mom, while Hae Sung has spent years looking for her online, not realizing that she changed her name when she emigrated at 12 years old.
Celine Song, in her directorial debut, presents all of this in a real, serene, romantic manner. Nora and Hae Sung reconnect over Skype (in the section of the movie which takes place 12 years ago), and start to develop that same romantic chemistry they had as children, albeit a more mature and sophisticated kind. The subdued yet open performances of the leads sell the relationship, too; they bring enough of their own personalities to the roles, but through Song’s writing, they also make it easy to project your own experiences onto what you’re seeing.
Past Lives’ biggest success is its internality. There are lots of conversations, but it evokes feelings of nostalgia, loss, and sentimental happiness, because it’s not easy to pick right back up where you were as children when you reconnect as fully established adults. And Song’s direction doesn’t only conjure memories of past loves (or infatuations), at least for me. Even through a specific story of someone changing cultures twice, finding other people, and reconnecting with a childhood attraction, the film’s emotional thrust is wide-reaching. It gets at you deep in your soul.
Quietly devastating, Past Lives toes the line between saccharine and honest, familiar and new, and natural life and heightened romanticism. Through subtle, ordinary imagery, Song enhances the rawness of her screenplay, and the acting as well. The film, in its organicity, works its way inside you and gets at your vulnerabilities. When Nora and Hae Sung finally reconnect in person, it’s the painful authenticity from Song, Lee, Yoo, John Magaro, and composers Christoper Bear and Daniel Rossen that sells the movie with their mix of wistfulness, longing, heartbreak, and soft yet loaded moments.
Score: 10/10
Past Lives is currently playing in theaters
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