A confident debut feature as this poignant drama about two Korean childhood sweethearts who meet again as adults in New York will likely work the tearducts. 

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Past Lives will go down as one of the year’s best films, but whether it has enough momentum and support to make a significant run for the Oscars (likely trying for Best Original Screenplay, and just maybe, a Best Picture nomination) remains to be said. 

Written and directed by Celine Song, who makes a confident debut feature, Past Lives should interest viewers who are into indie cinema that tackles Asian diasporic stories. 

Two Korean childhood sweethearts have to part ways when one of them, Nora, migrates to the States with her parents.  Years pass, and very much in the spirit of films like Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), time becomes a factor as prolonged ‘absences’ and short ‘rendezvous’ undergird the narrative. 

Built upon the premise that Nora (now married and a Korean-American) would meet Hae Sung again as adults in New York over a few days after more than two decades, Past Lives shares the anticipation of reunion with us. 

“You make my world so much bigger and I’m wondering if I do the same for you?”

Perhaps even more so, it asks us to think about intertwining fates and the ‘what could have beens’ in our lives.  In that regard, it will likely work the tearducts.  Life is made up of disruptions and serendipities—I would like to think that both can change us significantly. 

Every one of us is made up of different selves over time and Song’s work shows us the sheer impossibility of returning to our earlier selves because the desire to want to do so invariably incapacitates us.  Past Lives poignantly elicits this feeling, which we vicariously experience through the nuanced performances. 

Some have commented that the film would resonate more with the younger demographic (moviegoers in their 20s and 30s) rather than older folks.  Not sure how true this is but it could be reflective of either the latter’s jadedness towards sentimentality or the former’s fear of making wrong life decisions.

Grade: A-

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