Past Lives – Film Review

Director – Celine Song
Writer – Celine Song
Stars – Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro

The film starts with an interesting concept. It’s a game you might have played yourself, where you see some people at a bar and try to guess who they are. In this case, we see three characters talking at the bar, their voices lost in the noise. We then hear two disembodied voices speculating on the relationship between the characters. There are two men and one woman, and the voices guess that two of them are brother and sister, whereas the other two are married. They then reverse the couple and say the third member is a work colleague of one of the couple. Their guesses never quite hit the mark.

The three characters in question are Nora (Greta Lee), Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Arthur (John Magaro). Their situation is quite complex and revolves around Nora leaving her home in Seoul as a young girl. Nora’s parents are artists, one a film director and the other a visual artist. They leave Seoul and move to New York to start a new life, taking their children with them. Nora and Hae Sung are preteens and their intense friendship is abruptly ended by this move. As the film progresses, we meet the two characters, Nora and Hae Sung, at three stages in their lives. Once as children, once in their college years and finally as grown-ups, making their way through life.

The three characters are involved in a love triangle of sorts, but only in the most distant meaning of the term. Nora and Hae Sung have never been in the right place at the right time for any level of romance to start, and have left long gaps in their friendship. What is clear, is that in different circumstances, their friendship could have developed into more.

This is the debut film by Celine Song, and it is a film that could be a sleeper hit. The complexity of the relationships between the various characters really allows the audience to put their own spin on events, to take sides and hope for their preferred ending. The role of national identity is also explored in some depth, and we see how Nora changes as she grows and develops into an adult in New York. While very little happens other than in the minds of the characters, it’s a rich film that stays with the audience. It’s easy to say it will appeal to women more than to men, but really it will appeal to anyone who enjoys richly developed characters and complex situations.