Movie Review: Past Lives

Think back to your childhood or teenage years. Did you have a close friend or a first crush whom you have always remembered? Did your lives eventually go in separate directions? Have you sometimes, maybe even often, asked yourself, “What if?” This is the premise of the movie Past Lives. My friend Phaedra highly recommended this movie, so I went to see it Friday night at the Broadway theater. I really enjoyed it as well.

Past Lives is a gentle, slow burn that takes its time to develop the relationships among characters and portray their interactions at different stages of life. Movie-goers who prefer faster-paced plot development may struggle with the movie’s pacing. However, approaching it with a patient, unhurried mindset allows a beautiful story to unfold. The movie’s strength is in the relatable conversations that happen between characters as they reflect on life choices or events that got them to where they are. The movie also makes effective use of silence and sustained pauses to communicate the tension and awkwardness that exist between the characters at times.

The story begins with a twelve-year-old girl named Na Young (Moon Seung-ah) and a twelve-year-old boy Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min) who are best friends attending school together in Seoul, Korea. They compete with each other to earn the best grades, and they also develop a crush on each other. They share a first date, chaperoned by their mothers, at a local park. Even as the preteens explore their feelings for each other, Na Young knows that her family will soon be leaving Korea to start a new life in Canada. Her mother makes the notable statement that even though the family will be leaving behind a good life in Korea, they will be gaining something on the other side of the move. Na Young embraces this sense of opportunity and adventure, seeing it as a chance to pursue her ambitions. She and Hae Sung have a series of tense conversations, punctuated by uncomfortable silences, prior to her leaving Korea, but she never actually says goodbye to him. Their friendship is interrupted without closure or a plan to stay in touch.

Twelve years later, Na Young has changed her name to Nora (Greta Lee), and she has moved from Canada to New York City to pursue her writing career. She and her mother reminisce about friends from Korea, wondering what each might be doing. Nora remembers Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), looks him up online, and realizes he has been searching for her on social media. They reconnect over Skype and share a definite sense of excitement in having found each other again. However, they also realize that reconnecting in real life would be difficult to impossible because they are on separate paths pursuing separate goals. Neither is willing to compromise or adjust to include the other. In particular, Nora remarks that she has immigrated twice to get where she is (NYC), and she is determined to accomplish something there. Nora and Hae Sung decide to stop communicating, and again, their friendship is interrupted.

Twelve more years pass. Nora is now married to Arthur (John Magaro), a fellow writer whom she met at a writer’s retreat. They still live in New York City. We learn that Hae Sung was dating someone, but he ends the relationship because he is not ready to commit to marriage. He plans a trip to New York, under the guise of a vacation, but it is really an effort to see Nora. They spend a few days together reflecting on what might have been, but they also realize that they were holding on to past versions of themselves who no longer exist, and they have ended up exactly where they are supposed to be.

I particularly enjoyed Greta Lee’s portrayal of Nora in this film. She reveals her to be decisive and oriented toward the future. Lee shows us that Nora remembers and reflects on the past, but she doesn’t seem to be stuck and trapped by it. Nora evolves from the twelve-year-old we see at the beginning of the movie to an adult who has created a balanced, fulfilling life for herself. Her journey is satisfying to watch. Teo Yoo gives an equally good performance as Hae Sung. However, his character doesn’t seem to progress as far as Nora does. He longs more deeply for what might have been. This gets in the way of his fully developing a meaningful life in the present. Perhaps this contrast between the two characters gives us a cautionary tale: acknowledge our past and how it has shaped who we are, but don’t hold onto it so tightly as to limit who we could become.

For more information about this or other films playing at the Broadway theater, click here. Also, my friend Phaedra is an avid cinephile and patron of the arts who writes a blog about her experiences. You can read her review of Past Lives here.