The most intimate and tender movie of the first half of 2013 will land on the end-of-year top ten list for many. Past Lives, Celine Song’s feature debut, is a masterclass in storytelling, character development, and the subtle intricacies that subversive themselves in big and small relationships. Past Lives will undoubtedly be recognized during awards season, even with a nontraditional early summer release date.
So simple yet poignant, Song’s film hardly feels like it belongs to a first-time director. Past Lives feels like it has the expert craftsmanship of Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation or Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, early films in each of these director’s careers that vaulted them into Hollywood’s limelight. I don’t know if Past Lives will do the same for Song. At the same time, only a few would have predicted the storied movie-directing careers of Coppola are Linklater before their breakthrough efforts.
Past Lives tells the stories of Na Young (Greta Lee – Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Money Monster) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), childhood friends from South Korea who are forced to surrender their friendship when Na Young’s family immigrants to Canada when the two children are twelve years old. The film is told in three segments, each twelve years apart. Let’s look at the movie in present-day 2023 and date it back 24 years to 1999. We can be confident that the two wouldn’t have had the opportunity to maintain their friendship through yet-to-be-invented media applications, such as FaceTime, Facebook, or Zoom. Had these means of communication been around, it’s difficult envisioning the two children keeping up with their friendship, given the societal social norms that restricted boys and girls from having the same kinds of interactions that same-sex friendships otherwise may have had.
Flashforward twelve years. Na Young (knowing using Nora as her name) is a college student and aspiring writer who is finishing up her studies in New York City. Hae Sung, meanwhile, has completed his mandatory tour in the military and has returned to the comforts of his home in Seoul, where he regularly enjoys evenings with a core group of friends when he is not studying for a career in engineering. For the few moments we spend with Hae Sung, we can see that he had turned into a warm-hearted, kind, intelligent young man who broke out of the awkward shell he had lived in when he and Na Young parted ways (his final words to her as they walked home from primary school together, as they had every day for years, was a casual “bye.”).
During his most recent years, Nora learns that Hae Sung had been searching for her online, hoping to reconnect. Nora does a quick online search and sees that he had left a comment on her father’s restaurant’s Facebook page, asking to find her. Nora sends a friend request to Hae Sung, and very soon, they are connecting via email, online chat, and eventually face-to-face Zoom calls. They catch each other up on one another’s lives. In doing so, each realizes that the adult version of themselves can communicate more freely much of what they wish they could have said as children. There is infatuation, as you might expect or even experience, when you connect with someone you might have once had a crush on or, at least, found remotely attractive. It’s human nature. It can be harmless in the right situation, such as when someone is not in a romantic relationship. However, it can often be damaging in the wrong position.
While neither Nora nor Hae Sung is currently in a relationship, each is heavily invested in their career. While there is a curiosity to expand upon the excitement of this rediscovered connection, neither is willing to uproot themselves from their current situation. Nora realizes this first and chooses to pause the communication. Hae Sung doesn’t understand but feels at least some sense of comfort that this break is not because of a lack of interest on her end, as well as the hope that they can reconnect at a later part of their lives.
Fast-forward another twelve years. Nora lives in New York City and is married to a kindhearted Caucasian writer named Arthur (John Magaro – The Big Short, The Finest Hours). Their relationship is strong, though it seems to lack excitement. Whether this is purposeful by Song to show this particular component of their relationship, we get a sense that the relationship is more comfortable than anything. As Nora and Hae Sung reconnect, he has rediscovered a part of himself that he needs to explore or find closure with. He makes the voyage to New York to see Nora. Nora is very forthright with Arthur, telling him everything about their time as children in South Korea and the ongoing friendship they have established since. While there is an unspoken understanding of why Hae Sung is visiting Nora, he trusts his wife. It takes a strong partner to understand Hae Sung and accept him as a guest interested in his wife. It’s something I would struggle with. And while Arthur certainly feels some level of insecurity, he also knows he cannot deny his spouse from this experience.
The third act involves our lead characters, often together but more frequently in pairs. Hae Sung and Arthur have several conversations, sometimes with Nora as an interpreter, but one, in particular, that is just the two of them, conversing about Hae Sung’s poor grasp of English more so than Arthur’s even worse grasp of Korean. Each man begins to understand each other more with each passing minute. More importantly, we look at Nora’s conflicting feelings about Arthur and Hae Sung. Hae Sung never crosses any line as he talks with Nora. There is an unspoken somberness in Hae Sung, knowing, in this life, he’ll never be with Nora. There is an equal sense of what-if in Nora. What if she never immigrated to Canada? What if she hadn’t stopped speaking Korean (except with her mother)? What if she hadn’t distanced herself from the culture she was born to?
From a shy, blossoming playground crush to self-confident adults with wild aspirations to a reunion that has each person excited and nervous, Song digs deep into the emotional feelings of Nora, Hae Sung, and Nora in a very subdued way that allows for introspection of how relationships, both realized and not, influence all of us.
Plot 7/10
Character Development 9/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 8/10
Screenplay9/10
Directing 9/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
87%
B+
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