Past Lives

I was recommended to watch this film during a Friday-night-staying-up-till-2-am conversation with friends about where we see ourselves when we're thirty. I think it was very appropriate that a movie that prompts so much self-reflection on the destiny of romantic relationships was brought up then. This is certainly a film that causes some Friday-night-staying-up-till-2-am conversations with oneself lying in bed thinking about the future.

At the center of the story are Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo)—two childhood sweethearts who are separated when the former immigrates with her family to Canada and subsequently the US. The two manage to reconnect twice more in their future: first in their early twenties where they attempt a long-distance relationship and second in their mid-thirties after Nora has been married to another (John Magaro) for seven years. Like La La Land and Lost In Translation, Past Lives similarly has you yearning throughout the film that our two protagonists end up together. And also like La La Land and Lost In Translation, the film ends tragically with our lovers unable to be together and going their separate paths.

The film does a wonderful job of endearing us to our protagonists as a couple. Of course the audience is biased since we spend all of the film watching them interact. However, the charming awkwardness of trying out a relationship and feeling so strongly for the other person while not being able to say exactly the right things is on full display from the get-go. Their conversations throughout the film were filled with uncomfortable pauses and nervous smiles, and their falling in love felt so authentic because of it.

Building off that authenticity, what I loved the most about Past Lives was its complicated realism. Yes, the long-lost lovers reconnecting every decade is something you'll rarely encounter in real life, but what I found particularly genuine was the reason behind their ultimate separation. Unlike in La La Land and Lost In Translation, the two aren't driven apart by their ambitions for their respective careers or because of age-gap incompatibility. Both Nora and Hae Sung were seemingly perfect for each other, which made their ultimate fate all the more tragic: it didn't work out because, well, it didn't work out. The unexplained reasons, while infinitely more frustrating, I believe reflect much more about human love and relationships. We're not neatly-drawn people in a neatly-drawn world, and sometimes it's just impossible to explain why things panned out the way they did.

But apart from its thematic authenticity, the film did a wonderful job of making a compelling story with such a small cast of characters; it really only had three of them the whole time. And even Arthur, who the audience is set up to resent as the "evil white husband" who gets in the way of true love, elicited strong emotion from me as someone in love who fears his partner might love another. My favorite scene (while maybe a bit too meta) was his discussion with Nora where he expresses this fear about two-thirds of the way through the film. Just an all-around very beautifully written film. And I'll end the review by calling attention to the funniest part of the film—the only point where I would say the film wasn't beautifully written. Enjoy some background dialogue of Hae Sung's college peers that sounds straight out of an English Language Textbook:

"Have you done your homework?" "I haven't." "You have to do it for graduation." "I got under academic probation last semester." "Let me see your homework." "Maybe next time." "What's your plan for the weekend?" "Playing games."