Past Lives (2023)

Directed by Celine Song. Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro, Moon Seung-ah, Yim Seung-min. [PG-13]

Close childhood friends from South Korea, Nora and Hae Sung, are separated when Nora and her family emigrate to North America. Twelve years later, they reconnect through Skype, but because of career interests and how long it would be before either of them could visit the other, Nora severs ties. Another dozen years pass, and Nora (Lee) is a married playwright in NYC when Hae Sung (Yoo) takes a trip to see her. This stealthily moving film operates like a slow-burn melodrama without histrionics or calculation, eloquently illustrating how distant memories invariably affect us, how old feelings can never quite be vanquished and forgotten, and how the closer our idealized visions come to reality, the more acute the demand becomes. There are, among others, shades of Brief Encounter and the Before series, which is very good company to keep, using silences and guarded conversations to evoke sadness and searching and aching, but with the added value of its mythology of destiny: the title refers to the Korean belief of in-yeon, where connections between people are built on knowing each other in past lives going back thousands of years. In a movie full of intelligent choices, the wisest was making Nora’s husband (Magaro) a complex, sympathetic character—a worthy third spoke instead of third wheel, far more fascinating than the one-note sad sack pushover or jealous rival he could have been. I felt his distress when his wife says Hae Sung is attractive but she’s not willing to jeopardize her play rehearsals for him (instead of her marriage) just as much as I felt the final moments outside Nora’s house, which needed to earn that “pretty bow”…and absolutely did. Is it too humble, too tasteful, too elegant, or is debuting feature director Celine Song’s restraint the right temper for this style of simmering romantic urgency? And does it even matter when each of the three main performances (Lee in particular) manages to evoke a wealth of emotion and introspection without ever once showing off? There are nits to pick in the way it develops during the first two acts, but the accumulation is a doozy. I don’t know who is worthy of the praise—the director, the actors, the makeup team, the photographer—but the seamless way the characters naturally age a decade after the jump between the second and third segments is remarkable. Song also scripted.

91/100