A film review by Craig J. Koban January 19, 2024

PAST LIVES

2023, PG-13, 106 mins.

Greta Lee as Nora  /  Yoo Teo as Hae Sung  /  John Magaro as Arthur  /  Jojo T. Gibbs as Janice  /  Emily Cass  /  McDonnell as Rachel  /  Federico Rodriguez as Robert  /  Seung Min Yim as Young Hae Sung  /  Moon Seung-ah as Young Nora

I remember my very first grade school friendship with a girl like it was yesterday.   

For what seems like now to be a very brief period of time, we were relatively inseparable companions...and then life happened. 

I moved to a different school, as did she, and that was it.  I never saw or spoke to her again.  I have fond memories of her, but I've always had these nagging feelings from time to time about what might have happened if we continued to be confidants throughout childhood and then into adolescence and beyond.  Would we still be friends, or would our relationship have segued into something else? 

Watching South Korean-Canadian writer/director Celine Song's extraordinary debut feature film PAST LIVES resonated with me in deeply personal ways, seeing as it also explores a friendship between a boy and girl that grew apart, but in their case they reconnected later as adults.  

The film is semi-autobiographical by Song's own admission, inspired by similar events in her own life. The title refers to a running motif of In-Yun (when a person encounters another and has a brief interaction, it means that they have met before in a past life).  The idea of two former childhood friends spending 24 years apart and then confronting the whirlwind of conflicting emotions that come up when they finally meet again as adults is an endlessly compelling one.  PAST LIVES is a small-scale and economically made drama, but simmering underneath it all is a potent examination of longing, re-connecting, fate, and pondering the endless possibilities of what-if?  That, and it respects the dignity of its troubled characters as they're trying to navigate difficult feelings when a past connection once thought lost forever gets rekindled.  Even though the film is presented through the lens of Korean characters, it speaks volumes about the fragility of the human condition.  Song's film isn't flashy, but rather calm, patient, and understated, which gives it such a quiet power.  

We meet the two characters in question in the past and when they're just 12-years-old.  Both reside in South Korea and have come together through shared interests.  Nora (Seung Min Yim) has become close with Hae Sung (Seung Ah Moon), and just when things start to look interesting for the pair, Nora reveals that her family is going to immigrate to New York, leaving a crestfallen Hae Sun behind.  A decade-plus goes by, and we're re-introduced to Nora (played as an adult by Greta Lee), who's now an aspiring playwright.  Hae Sung (now played by Teo Yoo) has just finished his military service and hasn't really stopped thinking about Nora.  Through a series of social media connections, the former childhood pals find one another and have an emotional meet-up on Skype.  They literally have years worth of catching up to do, and soon let their sessions take up most of their free time.  Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that (a) Nora has no desire to head back to South Korea and (b) Hae Sung can't commit to coming to New York for a year-plus.  Seeing how this new online relationship might just end in pain, Nora makes the difficult decision to cut ties with Hae Sung for an indefinite period of time, which he begrudgingly agrees with.  

The film then flash-forwards another decade-plus, and the personal circumstance for both Nora and Hae Sund have immensely changed. He has just broken up with his long-term girlfriend and has finally decided to make the pilgrimage to The Big Apple.  Here's the problem, though: Nora found love with Arthur (Joe Magara) and has been living a relatively happy life, but when she hears that Hae Sung is coming - and they'll meet physically face-to-face for the first time since they were kids - it's both tantalizing and scary for her.  Of course, Arthur has his relatable and reasonable-minded concerns about his wife hooking back up with a man from her past that could upset the healthy balance of his marriage.  Nora does the best that she can to reassure him that Hae Sung poses no threat to ending their marriage, but, yes, deep down she's dealing with a lot of bittersweet memories and emotions.  Hae Sung is on the rebound and processing his own grief over ending his relationship with his girlfriend, so will that pose any problems meeting back up with his now married ex-friend?  Both he and Nora make a diplomatic move of inviting Arthur to come with them for their planned rendezvous, which makes for one complicated evening out for all.  

I wouldn't really dream of spoiling what happens next, other than to say that PAST LIVES does a thankless job of not taking these characters and their dilemmas down predictable and well-worn paths.  We have seen countless love triangle dramas before, but what makes this one special is that it's not concerned with contrived melodrama or questions whether Nora and Hae Sung will become a romantic item or not despite everything that has happened in their lives over 20-plus years.  PAST LIVES is more concerned with these characters having to process what it really means to be in each other's company again and how they reflect upon everything that has happened before and what's in front of them now.  Obviously, there's a hypnotizing dreamlike element to the film in terms of Nora and Hae-Sung wondering what their adult lives would have been like if they never separated as kids.  In a way, their past lives together were wonderful, yes, but the uncertainty of leaving people behind, paths not taken, and the crippling notion that some relationships are just never meant to be.    

I felt both elation and heartbreak for these characters.  They cared for each other so deeply, but then were separated by time and space.  Coming back together is such an ethereal high for them, but what ultimate good will come out of this?  Song has to engage in this tricky and delicate balancing act in the film: She has to examine what's going on with the mindsets of these people and respect what they're going through while framing it within a larger understanding of South Korean culture and the immigrant experience itself.  PAST LIVES is a uniquely told love story, but it's also about the difficulties - at least with Nora's family - of packing up everything to leave a home nation for a completely foreign land.  The film is in English and Korean (with subtitles), and what's interesting is how much Nora has assimilated into American life with her nurturing and well-meaning husband, professing to him at one point that she hardly has opportunities to speak Korean anymore.  She's as far removed from her childhood life back home as she ever will be.  When Hae Sung returns, it's a further manifestation of what she left behind.  PAST LIVES works so masterfully on so many levels.  It's about soul mates that never can be and also about what one gains when you leave and lose something.

The final sections of this film involving Nora, Hae Sung, and Arthur's night out are where it really hit home for me.  You can feel for Nora and Hae Sung in the sense that they have so much catching up to do and so many unspoken feelings that need to be brought to the surface, but they also can't really act on them for obvious reasons (and out of respect for Arthur, whom, to be fair, is an awfully good sport in all of this).  There's this internal power struggle that plagues these poor souls, and Song creates these tiny little moments of keen observation and tension just in the body language of these characters.  It all builds to a moment involving an excruciatingly long and eerily silent face-off between Nora and Hae Sung as they have reached the end of their journey and now have to come to grips with parting ways and losing each other again.  They lock eyes for what seems like an eternity and say nothing.  They remain completely still.  Yet, you feel the passion here and the devastating aura of unconsummated love that riddles through them.  They have a connection that will probably last forever, despite the fact that they're not destined to be together forever.  They're come so far and long from those wistful summer days in Seoul when they were wide-eyed kids and far removed from the burden of adult responsibilities.