Celine Song’s feature film debut is a gentle, yet passionate film that feels both restrained and bursting with emotion. A perfect score, beautiful cinematography, stunningly detailed production design, and a trio of heartbreaking performances take the film to masterpiece level. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo perfectly illustrate the subtle, cosmic yearning between their two characters. 

Past Lives may have been released in the first half of the year, but its easily one of the best films of the year. The film tells the story of two childhood sweethearts in South Korea who are separated when one of them immigrates to Canada with their family. A dozen years pass, they find each other on Facebook, but even still, they won’t meet again in person for another dozen years. On paper, the film sounds like a condensed version of the Before trilogy all in one film, but Past Lives is much different than the Linklater classic trilogy of unspeakable truths about the way that people find themselves with one another. Celine Song’s film isn’t focused on ‘who will she choose’ or regret of what has been lost, it is instead a thoughtful, gentle meditation on what may be finished in real life but remains forever unsolidified in the mind. 

Song’s background in theater perfectly makes a dialogue-filled movie cinematic; yet, there is nothing stagey about the film’s long stretches of conversation. The film, shot by Shabier Kirchner, is achingly stunning, and feels almost as a memory with its grainy take on its various locations throughout South Korea and New York. The hauntingly beautiful score, by Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen and Christopher Bear, fills the tension filled air around Hae Sung and Nora as they continue to be pulled toward and back away from one another.

The film begins 24 years in the past in Seoul, where Nora (then Na Young, played by Seung Ah Moon) awaits her family’s imminent relocation to Canada. Her childhood best friend, maybe more, named Hae Sung (played as a child by Seung Min Yim, as an adult by Teo Yoo), isn’t hiding that he will miss her dearly. As children, unaware of how to convey their emotions, though, they don’t give themselves much of a goodbye. They simply part ways one day after walking home from school, and then the newly named Nora is off to Toronto. 

Song catches up with Nora (now played by Greta Lee) and Hae Sung as twelve years pass. They’re in their twenties and on the precipice of their adulthood. Nora has moved to New York City, pursuing her playwriting dreams. Hae Sung has finished his mandatory service in the Korean army and is back living at home with his parents, and is enrolled in engineering school. A coincidental Facebook search brings the two friends back together. This middle section of the film is almost entirely a series of video chats between Nora and Hau Sung. The chats, meant to be two friends reconnecting, are always bustling with undercurrents of something deeper, more meaningful. 

In the third portion of Past Lives, when Nora and Hae Sung are in their 30s, Nora is married to a fellow writer named Arthur (John Magaro), while Hae Sung is newly out of a casual relationship and working in his mundane job. The two finally reconnect for the first time since they were children in South Korea, in New York. Nora shows Hae Sung the city while they talk around the palpable feeling that they share, until it can no longer go unaddressed. Song throughout the film has coolly been building towards this scene and what follows is a breathtaking moving payoff.

Throughout the film, Song incorporates a Korean phrase, “In Yun” into the story of the film. It’s a concept about human connection, timing, and, as the film’s title hints at, past lives. Through In Yun, both Nora and Hae Sung let themselves wonder about destiny, choices, and circumstance. If Nora had not left South Korea, would they be together? Who would they be if she hadn’t left? Would they be married with kids? Arthur also wonders about In Yun in his life with Nora. Arthur delivers a heartbreaking monologue about the idea of chance and circumstance inspired by the concept of In Yin.

While the film is broken into segments as time goes by, the cards are never labeled as years later, it’s always the years pass. It’s a distinctive word choice that expresses the feeling of time slipping through Nora’s fingers. The film is about the acceptance of lost things and compromise that becomes a defining part of adulthood. Past Lives is also poignantly, about the immigrant experience, what it is to leave one life behind in exchange for a new one. There is so much to be unpacked with the way Nora describes how Hae Sung makes her feel more and less Korean. Past Lives is a richly sensitive film not about the one who got away, but would they still be the one if they had remained in your life? The film is about the passage of time as you become an adult and the way absence can shape our memories. 

Past Lives soars because of the three performances at its center. Lee allows audiences to feel every emotion that flickers her mind through her eyes, body language, and her chemistry with the man of her past as well the man of her present. Yoo is achingly perfect as Hae Sung; he brings life to a hopeless romantic. He soars on screen and your heart aches for him through Yoo’s perfect delivery of every line, stolen glance, and the longing in his gaze. Magaro allows Arthur never falls into a sterotype of the husband of a woman who belongs with someone else, as the screenplay wouldn’t have it, but Magaro perfectly captures who Arthur is and how to display his emotions, no matter how confusing it is internally for him. The characters in Past Lives are a lot like the people in the real world, scared and self-obsessed but generally kind.

Song’s beautiful, heart wrenching film is an exploration of what we gain or lose when we choose a version of ourselves as we grow up. She explores what constitutes meant for each other love as we continue to grow and look back on our lives. Past Lives is both understated and immense in its contemplation of the changes of life and desires, of the past sneaking up to the present. The film is one of the most promising debuts in recent memory and marks the presence of a filmmaker who we can’t see what she delivers next.

Grade: A+

Oscars Prospects:
Likely: Best Picture, Original Screenplay
Should be Considered: Best Lead Actress (Greta Lee), Best Lead Actor (Teo Yoo), Best Supporting Actor (John Magaro), Best Director, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design

Release Date: June 9, 2023
Where to Watch: In Select Theaters