Quietly devastating, Past Lives follows two childhood friends as they face the paths their choices have left them. Made with remarkable skill and precision, it is a wrenching account of how dreams die.
Childhood friends in Seoul, Nora and Hae Sung separate when Nora’s parents emigrate to Canada. Twelve years later they reconnect over the internet, Nora pursuing a career as a playwright, Hae Sung studying engineering after compulsory military service.
It takes another twelve years for the two to meet in person, when Hae Sung (now played by Teo Yoo) visits Nora (Greta Lee) in New York City. By now Nora has married Arthur (John Magaro), who is understandably anxious about his wife seeing her childhood sweetheart.
Writer and director Celine Song’s screenplay strips the film’s plot down to narrative basics. Romance in movies is built around delay, the inability of its leads to find happiness together. Song mines this element expertly (24 years is a long time to wait), building plausible reasons for Nora and Hae Sung to separate and reunite.
But Past Lives is more than a romance, it is a clear-eyed examination of how two characters (and by extension, a third) turn into people they never expected. Headstrong, impetuous, Nora finds her way changing as the world constricts around her. Stalwart, patient, Hae Sung must accept how his choices have shaped him. And Arthur learns that he can never truly know his wife, no matter how long they are together.
Song’s background in theater is clear in her elisions. The script glides from moment to moment, condensing and expanding time. Nora’s affair with Arthur unfolds in a few, brief scenes that stretch across years. Song isolates key moments between young Nora and Hae Sung, holding on situations that will reverberate throughout their lives.
Nora and Hae Sung are searching for a past that may never have existed, at least not the way they understand it. “This is where I ended up,” Nora admits to herself as one point.
Cinematographer Shabier Kirchner singles out these two characters in a teeming world. He frames Nora so that her memories become our memories. A tilt down from the Seoul skyline finds two young children climbing stairs. Years later, a similar tilt from the Manhattan Bridge finds two old friends walking along an East River path. Precise but unassuming, Kirchner continues a string of excellent work that includes Bull and Small Axe.
Keith Fraase’s editing is key to the movie’s success, never more so than during the final scenes. And the music by Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen maintains Song’s elemental style.
In a story about choices, Song has made all the right ones. No movie this year shows the hurt of lost dreams like Past Lives.
Written & Directed by Celine Song. Produced by David Hinojosa, p.g.a., Christine Vachon, p.g.a., Pamela Koffler, p.g.a. Executive Producers: Miky Lee, Hosung Kang, Jerry Kyoungboum Ko, Celine Song, Taylor Shung, Christine D’Souza Gelb. Director of photography: Shabier Kirchner. Production designer: Grace Yun. Edited by Keith Fraase. Music by Christopher Bear & Daniel Rossen.
Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro, Seung Ah Moon, Seung Min Yim.
Photo courtesy A24.
