Film Review: "Past Lives" (2023).

"Written and directed by Celine Song" comes Past Lives. This romantic drama film written and directed by Song, in her feature directorial debut. Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life, in this heartrending modern romance.

In January 2020, it was announced Choi Woo-shik would star in a romantic drama film with Song as writer and director, and A24 set to produce and distribute alongside Killer Films and CJ ENM. In August 2021, Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro, and Choi Won-young were cast, with Yoo replacing Choi. Principal photography took place in Seoul, South Korea and New York City, New York, USA, and the film was shot on 35 mm film.

The film stars Lee, Yoo, Magaro, and Choi. Both Lee and Yoo gave wonderful and moving performances. Nora and Hae Sung have suppressed most outward signs of emotion. But Lee and Yoo show the emotion roiling beneath the surface.

The film is a finely tuned meditation on the struggle of two young childhood friends trying to reconnect and resume their feelings for each other while trying to search for the places in the modern world. Song has become an important new voice for the Asian-American experience which remains at the forefront of the vivid stories shared onscreen, their impact lingering long after leaving the theater. Subtle and mesmerizing. It's a film that should be absorbed and celebrated, giving many of us a peek into a world of which we might be unfamiliar, but exposing the similarities that bind us together as human beings. This is a film with a committed sense of sadness, although it is never cloying or manipulative. The characters are too proud for that, but they wish they could be stronger. The film gets messy here and there, but the film has ideas on culture, relationships, and the never-ending Double Dutch game of emotion. This poignant story about the love we harbour for the past captures how our cultural specificities truly do reflect universalities. It shows how we are more alike than we are different, and that is a story worthy of our attention. The film offers a meditative, timely, and multilayered exploration of how cultural legacies from the 'motherland' shape the lives of Asian diaspora. Song obviously understands these characters, and the film presents them and their fractured relationships without an ounce of judgment. Each layer is so beautifully, subtly explored, you can get lost in the characters' emotions or just be swept away by Lee and Yoo's performances which graciously soaks in the spirits of both their respective cultures. Raw and rough but also delicately beautiful, Song's directorial feature debut is an eye-opening look into the cultures of East and West and a touching portrayal of unrequited love.

Simon says Past Lives receives: