Celine Song’s “Past Lives” plays like a filmmaker’s fourth or fifth career movie. Her assuredness of tone and pacing feels like she has perfected these skills through making some early features– it stunned Sundance Film Festival audiences as a combination writing / directorial debut. Song’s delicate confidence in telling this story has catapulted the movie to universal praise: it has (deservedly) been deemed the best movie of the year so far.
“Past Lives” is a rare kind of movie; it effortlessly straddles the line of specific and universal, melancholic but hopeful. What’s further remarkable about this as a debut feature is Song’s tricky tonal balance, which she performs with naturalistic ease. A bittersweet note hangs over the entire film, but Song doesn’t revel in it for dramatic effect, rather, she embraces it as part of her characters’ journey.
Childhood friends Na Young (Seung Ah Moon) and Hae Sung (Seung Min Yim) are classmates in Seoul and inseparable in and out of school. Na Young’s family is getting ready to immigrate to Toronto, while Hae Sung’s family is staying in Korea. The film cuts to 12 years later, when Na Young – who now goes by Nora, played by the wonderful Greta Lee – is living in New York with aspirations of being a writer. She hasn’t spoken to her childhood friend in over a decade, but the two reconnect on Facebook and begin a series of Skype calls to catch up. There’s an inherent awkwardness between Nora and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) as they reconnect, but also a common ground that eases them back into their friendship.
Nora decides they should take a break from speaking because she wants to focus on her life and blooming career in New York City. Another 12 years goes by, and Nora is now married to fellow writer Arthur (John Magaro) when she hears from Hae Sung, who is coming to New York City and would like to see her. Nora agrees, taking him to see the Statue of Liberty and showing him the city, but really, Sung just wanted to get in touch with Nora after a few starts and stops to their friendship.
Song’s film appears small but tackles the big life question of ‘what if?’ – it is deeply romantic without always being about romance; it presents the question of whether someone can love two people in different ways. Nora sees Hae Sung as someone from another life, which makes her wonder where she would be if she stayed in Korea. Every feeling is conveyed through a trio of performances that are subtle yet profound. Through Lee and Yoo’s performances, you can see the history of their characters written on their faces through every half-smile or stolen glance.
Magaro’s Arthur is a tricky character because, in a cheaper movie, he would have been written as a villain (as Arthur even alludes to himself). But Song has made a smarter movie than that. There are no histrionics or confrontations written in Song’s screenplay; no one raises their voice at any point in the movie. Magaro’s empathetic performance is calibrated perfectly to the character written by Song.
“Past Lives” isn’t about the binary outcome of choice, about whether Nora made the right or wrong decision. That would be too simple, too by-the-numbers, and make for a lesser movie. This isn’t a story about a young woman torn between two men, but of a woman torn by two lives. Nora wants to honor her past, and must make the tough decision about how much of that to carry forward into her adult life. “Past Lives” doesn’t necessarily pose this question to the audience on Nora’s behalf, but allows us to witness Nora’s exploration and maturation. It’s a marvel of a movie – and a privilege Song trusted her audience with this journey.
“Past Lives” opens at The Little Theatre on June 30: tickets and showtimes here.
Matt Passantino is a freelance writer for CITY. Feedback about this review can be directed to Editor Leah Stacy, leah@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2023.
