Past Lives

Two childhood friends lose touch after one’s family emigrates from South Korea to Canada. Decades later, they are reunited for one week as they confront destiny, love, and the many choices that make up a life.

Past Lives is the feature film debut of writer and director Celine Song, a playwright whose credits before this film were mostly that they had written a few episodes of the Wheel of Time series, which is a terrible show, and gives no hint whatsoever they they were capable of crafting a story like this, this tale of intertwined souls and unrequited love. I understand having to pay the bills, of course, and being forced to play the hand you’re dealt, but damn… this is a step up, is what I’m saying.

As a young girl in South Korea, Na Young is best friends with a boy in her class named Hae Sung. The two obviously have a very deep connection, something that binds them together, something that, if given the chance, could blossom into much more. But before this can happen, Na Young’s family moves to Canada. The long years and the longer distance naturally causes the two to drift apart, and it’s not until twelve years later, around the time Facebook really starts to become a thing, that Na Young, now an aspiring playwright in New York City, is able to reconnect to Hae Sung, who is an engineering student in Seoul, fresh out of the army. And for a time, their lives revolve around their regular Skype calls, but eventually, as neither of them is willing to upend their lives and move across the planet, the spark begins to fizzle and fade, and they decide to move on, to focus on their lives here at home, to live once again, in the real world. Twelve more years pass before Nora and Hae Sung finally meet again in person when he visits New York for a week, and for that brief time, the feelings they thought they had left behind long ago are brought back once again…

Great Lee as Na Young and Teo Yoo as Hae Sung deliver a pair of quietly stunning performances—performances that were unfortunately snubbed by the Academy this year—as the film explores the bond between two people that stretches across time and space, from playground crushes to adulthood, all the way across the planet. The duo share something that no one else can touch, despite the years and miles, something brought clearly into focus as they lapse into conversation in their shared language, the whole world obviously melting away as they lean in close. It’s a connection that even her husband, despite his sincere intentions, and all while sitting right next to her, can not match. Together, their interactions seem so effortless and natural. They look at each other with so much implied history and so much longing for what might have once been, but it’s also restrained. They have an undeniable connection, but perhaps the distance is just too great now, and there’s just nothing that can be done about that.

The love remains, but their moment has passed.

Because that connection, despite its obvious strength, it doesn’t necessarily mean they feel the same way about each other, something that has maybe always been true for them, the ebb and flow of their need for one another changing throughout their lives. Their connection is strong enough that it still stretches between the different paths of their lives after all this time, that is plain to see, but the simple truth is also just as plain… they are on different paths, and what might have been is now nothing more than what might have been.

And that’s all it will ever be.

In the film’s beginning, before leaving Korea, Nora’s mom justifies the move, saying: “If you leave something behind, you gain something, too.” This isn’t just a reflection of the different lives Nora and Sung will live, the things they find and the things they lose, but of the immigrant experience in America too. It’s obvious that a fair part of the attraction Lee’s Nora still feels for Yoo’s Sung is in the fact that he understands a fundamental piece of her that she was forced to put away on a shelf when her family moved to Canada. He is a part of her that she once loved and has forgotten.

It’s sad and romantic and honest, and the movie’s often returns to the Korean idea of In-Yun, which is about reincarnation and the idea that even the briefest of encounters you may have had in a past life can influence who you connect with in the present. In the film, it’s used as a way to illustrate not just the depth of the pair’s connection, but to explain how they are not meant to be together now. Nora laughs the idea off, as she explains it to the nice white guy who she eventually falls in love with and marries, but for Sung, it’s an idea that seems to grow more powerful in him the older he gets, even as he must face the fact that this life now may just be nothing more than the brief encounter that fuels their connection in some future life.

Past Lives is a slow and nuanced film. It’s fair to say that it’s “talky.” It’s a film that wanders the streets of NYC, framed by all of the iconic vistas of the well-known city, but despite being in such a large place, it still feels like a sparsely-decorated play, with a tight spotlight, and all the focus on just these two and the bright line that ties their souls together. That it feels so natural and intimate really is a testament to the debut writer/director’s skill, allowing for as many moments of self-reflection as it does for humor and human drama. This is a story about relationships, the loved and the lost, the embraced and the missed, how they influence who we are, and who we become, so it’s supposed to be quiet, and the director allows it to be that.

It’s a love story, but it’s an unrequited one. This might frustrate some people, but that’s on them, and it’s not something I understand. This is about the lovely dream, but it never implies that the dream is a better than reality, it’s just lovely. That’s all. And like all dreams, eventually it burns away with the light of the new day.

So, quietly, sadly romantic, the film lets us dwell on the what-ifs and roads-not-taken in our own lives, as we watch these two enjoy the last moments of a fading dream, and to then lament its loss, and that’s nice. It’s a sweetly melancholic moment to savor.

It’s really good.