Past Lives

Past Lives is a story about people who are a swirling tornado of emotions. We’re not always entirely sure how they feel, because they’re not sure. Yes, they feel a connection stronger than time and space pulling them together, but despite the relatively few names for it in English, there are a multitude of ways it can be expressed. Long-lost friendship, romance, a fling, a friendship, or even someone who brings out the most destructive side of yourself. And it’s not always easy to tell which one is which even when you’re right in the middle of it. Even when you know it might be a bad idea, curiosity may get the best of you.

To explore these ideas, Past Lives utilizes a very small main cast. Nora (Greta Lee) is our protagonist, a woman who grew up in Korea and moved to NYC as a teenager, where she eventually became a professional playwright. She left behind childhood friend and sweetheart Hae-Sung (Yoo Teo), who remained in Seoul but never forgot her. They reconnect via Skype over a decade later in their mid-twenties, and that bond returns almost immediately. But both of them are leading their own lives a world apart, preventing them from finding the time to visit. Rather than living in NYC with her heart in Seoul, Nora proposes they take a break from talking, in order to get their own houses in order.

The meat of our tale takes place another twelve years later, with both in their mid-thirties. Nora is married to fellow writer Arthur (John Magaro), and Hae-Sung and his long time girlfriend have just separated. Hae-Sung is planning a vacation to NYC, and will be spending some time with Nora and Arthur. The stage is set for some intense, fraught, raw, and highly emotional conversations.

I do not say that derisively. If you’ve been reading my reviews here or on Letterboxd, or talked to me in person or on social media, you probably know my adoration of intense interpersonal dramas. The Wrestler has long been one of my favorite movies, and I’ve become a big fan of “slow cinema” over the past few years. So this movie taking its sweet time, developing the layers and intensity of the relationship between Nora and Hae-Sung, as well as their dynamic and worldview, and adding in the extra element of their relationships, then stepping back to let it play out truly was an exciting prospect.

And it absolutely delivers. Not perfectly, but nearly so. You’d be forgiven for not realizing this is Celine Song’s debut film (she’s a playwright, and was a staff writer on The Wheel of Time, but this is her first movie experience).

Little is spoon-fed to the audience. This isn’t a melodrama; characters don’t readily or clearly state their intentions or desires, be it to themselves or to others. Instead, so much is said between the lines, driven home by masterful performances from Lee and Yoo. The weight of all that we’ve seen on screen comes to bear, every pause full of meaning. They perfectly recreate the feeling of the reunion of two people with a deep and complicated history. The joy, the awkwardness, the comfort, the uncertainty, the caution, the relief, all of it.

In all of this, Arthur plays an interesting role, which he calls out himself. He’s deeply insecure, not quite comfortable with the fact that there’s a whole side to his wife that he can never truly access, due to not speaking Korean and limited knowledge of Korean culture. Not that he’s resentful or anything like that, he just recognizes that means there will always be a gap between them. Add to that mix someone who not only shares that connection with her, but is a close friend from her past with whom she shared romantic interest, and he finds himself feeling like the third wheel. Of course, the irony is that Hae-Sung is Arthur’s reflection: his English is poor, and his only experience of American culture is what the US exports around the world, not living it, so he and Nora have a similar default distance. Nora is the only one of the three of them with a foot in both worlds.

This is most of what we know of Arthur, which ends up being the weakest part of the film. Their relationship and conversations are excellent and beautiful, especially one while lying in bed, bearing their souls, as Arthur tries to grapple with how he fits into her world, and how her circumstance has shaped her life down to who she married. But Arthur comes off as purely an idea to further such conversations, not a fully realized character. It leads to him feeling somewhat hollow and unrealized, which does detract somewhat from the experience. To be clear, not a ton. It shaves a little bit off of it for me, but as of this writing it’s in my top ten on the year. So while noticeable, it doesn’t ruin it.

I can’t say too much more without spoiling how everything plays out. But as you’d expect in a movie like this, all the threads and relationships and conversations that have been swirling the whole time reach a fever pitch and come together at the end in a handful of successive emotional scenes. The way you feel these characters dance around each other and adjust and grow within the scenes is just remarkable. I dare you not to shed some tears as the story draws to a close.

As with any great film, the score helps to sell it. It’s deployed quite well, used sparingly to accentuate the weight of what we’re seeing on screen at key moments, primarily taking the form of small, soft, haunting keyboards. You barely notice it, but their absence is palpable during a number of key conversations where they let the sounds of the city form the backdrop.

One other thing that I think is super cool, but couldn’t figure out where to mention it. The whole time Nora and Hae-Sung are Skyping, the connection is bad. It stutters, they have to repeat themselves, and calls drop. This is one of the few (maybe only?) times I’ve seen a movie include that imperfection, and to so deliberately highlight the distance between these characters, even as they grow closer emotionally. It’s such an excellent detail, and one even more familiar now that so many of us had to work or learn or socialize remotely over the past few years.

Past Lives is an outstanding film, and it’s the type of thing I’ve been pleased to see get heaps of praise. In a world where Hollywood is mostly focused on big budget action blockbusters, I’m glad there’s room for these kinds of adult dramas to make waves. Not that there’s anything wrong with blockbusters: it’s just nice that there’s enough oxygen left for my preferred genre, even if they’ll never be a box office smash.