PAST LIVES Review
In South Korea, two close childhood friends, a boy and a girl about 12 years old, are separated when the girl's family moves to the United States. Twelve years later, though she's still in South Korea and he's in New York, they reunite in Celine Gunn's jaw-dropping drama Past Lives.
Past lives are a kind of romance, but not in the way you might imagine. Still, it's a heartwarming drama with a great script, brilliantly acted and directed, expertly directed by Celine Song, who also wrote the screenplay. Spanning decades and half a world, Past Lives explores how loved ones come together and fall apart across time and distance.
Past Lives can be described as an intelligent person's novel. It's no small feat to create a romantic drama that truly moves the audience, but Past Lives holds it back. This is partly because it avoids certain romantic tropes, but where some familiar elements are unavoidable, it breaks the rules by talking to the characters. And analyze it, creating a sense of reality by revealing the intelligence of the characters. Add a subtle sense of humor.
Like South Korea's smart kids and close friends, she's ambitious, the girl who always gets the straight A and her friend comes second, but cries when he doesn't. He is patient and supportive of the crying girl, as he calls himself, and right after his shadow.
She confesses to her sister that she is in love with her friend.
He is disappointed when she tells him that the family is emigrating. She says it's because they want to give her, her gifted daughter, a better chance at success. It's a little more difficult, but South Korea was in economic decline at the time.
Before leaving the family, the girls choose "American names" and he chooses Nora. In order for Nora to cherish the last memory of their love, the mothers arrange a "date" for Nora and Hae Sang at the playground where the mothers are close.
They each have their own educational and career goals: Hae-sung (Theo Yoo) is an engineer in South Korea and Nora (Greta Lee) is a playwright in New York. After 12 years, Hae Sung meets Nora online and realizes that she shares his childhood sweetheart.
Past lives are an ongoing, bitter, yet refreshingly real drama that unfolds over time, connections and disconnections over time, and cultural experiences disintegrate.
It's a gritty feature film written and directed by Celine Song, but you'd never guess it because of her vast theater experience. The story was inspired by a moment in her personal experience when she sat in a bar with her husband and their Korean childhood sweetheart, translated between them, and realized that without him they would never have met.
As Nora, Greta Lee never fails to impress with her ability to play Nora at various points in her life, conveying complex and nuanced emotions with surprising clarity. Theo Yu's attractive character is less expressive and open than Nora Lee, and the character's opacity adds extra tension to the drama as a whole. Although the film has a romantic thread, it is characterized by constant tension. As the two move forward in their lives and meet regularly, the play also explores the experience of migration over time, which rarely happens.
It's hard to overstate how carefully crafted, emotionally powerful and dramatically impactful this play is. Along with the moving story and beautifully structured structure of the script, it is visually stunning, using only a few flashy shots at the right time. One of them appears at the end of the film when the childhood friends talk to the Statue of Liberty in the background, and the other appears in the last frame of the film, which flashes back to childhood.
Past Lives is an immersive drama that blends a different kind of immigrant story with a fresh take on real-life romance, powered by excellent acting, strong and engaging storytelling, and Celine Gunn's deft direction.
Past Lives hits theaters Friday, June 23
Rating: 4 out of 4 stars
