Don’t Let “Past Lives” Be the One That Got Away

Watching Celine Song’s excellent new film, Past Lives, I found myself thinking of Sliding Doors. 

In that 1998 high-concept film, Gwyneth Paltrow plays a woman who exists in two different realities: One in which she just misses getting on a subway train, and the other where she makes it just in time. The film hinges on the concept of “What if?” and we see what happens in both timelines, so we don’t have to wonder.

Like Sliding Doors, Past Lives examines how the notions of fate, love, and the choices we make affect the lives we lead.

But in Past Lives — which, to be absolutely clear, is a much better film than Sliding Doors — we don’t get the benefit of seeing what would have happened had things been different. Instead, the question of “What if?” hangs over the entire film. 

This new movie gets its title from a belief in Korean culture, called In-Yun, which means that your romantic partner is someone with whom you shared a previous life, and who is someone you are destined to be with in every incarnation, which explains the deep connection the two of you share.

At the start of the film, we meet best friends Na Young and Hae Sung, the smartest kids in their class in Seoul, South Korea, both with competitive streaks and crushes on each other. But when Nora’s family emigrates to Canada, the two friends are separated. 

Twelve years later, Na Young goes by Nora (Greta Lee). She is a graduate student and writer in New York and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) is an engineering student back in Seoul. Thanks to Facebook, the two reconnect, and over the course of many long conversations via Skype, they realize their bond is still there. Very much so. But Nora gets cold feet because it’s clear they won’t be together in person anytime soon, and they stop talking.

Twelve years after that, with Nora now happily married to an American named Arthur (John Magaro), newly single Hae Sung decides to visit New York — forcing him and Nora to finally grapple with the question of what might have happened had she never left Seoul all those years ago, and whether the two are, indeed, destined to be together.

The magic of the film happens not when the two are face-to-face again after more than two decades — though, that is certainly a charged moment. It’s in the awkwardness and the silences when Nora and Hae Sung are pondering the maybes that have affected their relationship through the years. Watching the two lock eyes, hearing Hae Sung tell Nora “I missed you,” your heart breaks and you wonder what might have been and might still be. And when Arthur reveals to an otherwise assimilated Nora during a bedtime conversation that he often hears her talk in her sleep in Korean — “You dream in a language I can’t understand,” he says — it’s clear that Nora is still caught between two worlds, even after all this time.

Nora is, indeed, the heart of this movie, and Lee — best known for her roles on the AppleTV+ series The Morning Show and Netflix’s Russian Doll — gives a terrific, star-making performance that straddles and acknowledges her character’s two cultural identities: With Arthur, Nora exudes confidence and independence. But with Hae Sung, there’s a different spark. She’s not the schoolgirl she once was, but Hae Sung brings her back to those days in a way that only he can. It’s a subtle difference that Lee never overplays, and the conflicting feelings come through clearly. 

Likewise, Song never overplays the film’s rich emotions. She dramatizes the central conflict with understanding and authenticity, letting the tension build in a way that feels earned. Arthur himself acknowledges what a great story this all is, and he fears he’ll be the villain in the whole thing, the “evil” white American standing in the way of his wife eventually running away with her long-lost childhood sweetheart. But Song doesn’t take that obvious route; Arthur is nuanced and well developed in a way that makes him a worthy and valid alternative to Hae Sung. You can see why Nora loves him.

In short: You don’t know which way the story will go right up until the end, when Nora makes her decision.

Aided by Shabier Kirchner’s impressive cinematography and, especially, a beautiful score by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen, Past Lives grounds itself in the specifics of Korean culture, and yet its questions of lost love and “What if?” feel wholly universal. Amazingly, this is Song’s filmmaking debut, and as writer and director, she’s come out of the gate with a confidently made film that’s lovely, endearing, and unforgettable — and one of my favorites of this or any life.

Don’t let it get away from you.

I’m giving Past Lives an A.