Past Lives - Movie Review

Critics Score - 9 of 10

General Audience Score - 8 of 10

We all make decisions, some big, mostly small, every hour of our waking lives. Most will have little to no bearing on the course of our lives, but a few of those decisions have profound implications, some resulting in untold joys and happiness, others in pain and sadness, a few in longing, regret or wondering what might have been. From A24 studios comes Past Lives, a film from writer and first time director Celine Song. It is the simple, yet powerful story of our choices and the impact they can have in where our lives take us. There’s no all-star cast here, there’s no action or intense dramatic interactions, for the most part. But there is some contemplative relationship dynamics and a finale like no other I’ve seen this depicted onscreen in quite some time. Although this movie is a bit of a slow burn that a few in the general audience will get bored with, film critics and cinephiles will be shouting this film’s praises for quite some time. By far the best final five minutes of cinema in a 2023 movie that I’ve seen yet, make the great decision to not let the new film Past Lives pass you by.

SYNOPSIS - The introduction to our film sets us up with a couple whom we do not see conversing while they watch a trio perched at the bar across the room from them. A camera shot opens and we see a bar bathed in an orangish light with the three sitting at the bar with their drinks, an Asian woman in the middle is turned towards an Asian man on her right and they appear to be conversing, a forlorn looking white guy sitting closer to the woman on her left is leaning over the bar and watching the other two. The mystery voices fill our ears as we hear the woman say, “Who do you think they are to each other?”. The male voice guesses that the white guy and Asian girl are a couple and the other guy is her brother. They go back and forth a few more moments but as the two voices conclude their game of speculation, the man summarizes, “they’re not even talking to the white guy.” The woman, Nora (Greta Lee) who we’ll soon discover is our main protagonist, turns up and looks straight at the camera, breaking the fourth wall with a face of stone, her eyes unwavering as they pierce us through the cameras lens. The scene cuts and text onscreen informs us we’ve moved twenty four years into the past and as we watch two young kids, a boy and a girl, walking up the street together, we realize we’ve also been spun around the globe and we’re in South Korea. The little girl is young Nora (Moon Seung-ah) and her friend is a young Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min), she’s a bit upset because he just beat her on a school test.

As we get to know these two over the next few minutes, we get the sense they’re sweet on each other, but Nora and her family are preparing to immigrate to the United States. Hae Sung and Nora grow up, we move twelve years forward now and the adult Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) finishes his government required two year stint in the South Korean army. Meanwhile the now adult Nora is enjoying her life as a New Yorker doing the one thing non-wall street New Yorkers are allowed to be portrayed as doing in film, she’s a writer. She tracks down Hae Sung on Facebook and sends him a message which he gets while he’s out drinking with his buddies, but he’s too inebriated to figure out who sent him the message. When he wakes up the following morning and checks his phone, sees Nora’s message and after clicking on her profile and seeing her picture, we see in his face his mind filling in the blanks and gaps of the twelve years that have passed since he last saw his childhood friend. As the two begin to reconnect via messaging and video calls, they begin to pick up their relationship where they left off so many years before. But life has a way of throwing monkey wrenches into the best laid plans of mice and men, and these childhood sweetheart’s journeys with some eleven thousand miles separating the two must again part ways. But the finale brings us full circle as the cathartic release we watch unfold is as big of a gut punch as you’re likely to see in cinemas this year.

My first thoughts on this film that I must emphasize is the direction. For a first time director, Celine Song stepped up to bat and was able to pretty much hit it out of the park, the finale, like I mentioned earlier, was a long take, and she directed the hell out of that scene in particular. Other than having some great directorial sensibilities, Song also wrote the well constructed screenplay to complement her directing. Although the film is slower paced, it clocks in at just a hour and forty-five minutes, while Song methodically covers the pair's relationship up to this point a few general audiences might get bored along the way. The camera also utilizes some excellent shot compositions and while this is no Roger Deakins level cinematography, Past Lives is certainly able to capture some nice sequences and from a purely aesthetic perspective, has a decent amount of cinematic flair. But the trio of actors at the center of the film were all excellent, but the duo of Greta Lee and Tae Yoo are really doing something special. In my mind, these two actors are in love in real life and nothing anybody ever says will change my mind. There’s so much brilliant work taking place in this film that it’s hard to not be impressed, but when you find out how much of this work is coming from a debut director, it’s a bit mind blowing. Past Lives is an achievement in not only Asian filmmaking but cinema period and like Drive My Car and Shoplifters, this film is sure to be a critical darling for the 2023 year.

SUMMARY - Any perceived faults that lie with the film from the simplicity of it’s story to the pacing issues through the first half are quickly forgotten by the time the credits roll, there won’t be many dry eyes left in the house. Don’t wait for your next life to catch Past Lives, films like this just don’t come around very often.