‘Past Lives’ Review: A Haunting and Intimate Debut
A Totally Reel Review
Rate It Out of Eight
7/8
Past Lives is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It’s subtle, poignant, and incredibly intimate. It’s a simple premise of a woman who reconnects with her childhood sweetheart 24 years later: the cinematography is subdued and the coloring is desaturated to avoid detracting from the heart of the story. In fact, at first I was confused how this unassuming movie has been quite so critically acclaimed. But it’s stayed with me all week and the more I thought about it, the more I’ve come to appreciate and love it.
I still can’t believe this is Celine Song’s debut feature though it’s no surprise that the movie is in part inspired by her own experiences as many of the best stories come from experience. Past Lives strikes just the right balance between personal and universal — anyone can relate to the hints of longing and “what ifs” (if not a childhood sweetheart, then some other person or decision in your life).
I also loved that the movie touched briefly on the theme of being in love with a person vs. being in love with the memory of a person. In this case, it’s about being in love with what could’ve been, idolizing a fond memory in the past. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a movie about how haunting memories of an ex can be, is name dropped and adds to that longing the two feel for their childhood.
500 Days of Winter
I’m going to start this review by comparing Past Lives to one of my favorite movies: 500 Days of Summer. For those who haven’t seen it, Joseph Gordon-Levitt falls madly in love with Zoey Deschanel’s character — only he’s not really falling in love with her, he’s falling in love with this vision of her in his mind. The entire movie is told from his perspective and the way Summer (Zoey) is portrayed changes with his feelings:
Past Lives is the opposite. This movie is unflinchingly realistic. There were multiple times I’d cringe at the awkwardness of these interactions — after all, how do you talk to your former crush of 12 years ago? 24 years ago? Celine Song leans into this — some shots will linger just a bit more than we’re used to or the silence will stretch on a few seconds longer. She isn’t portraying a rom-com, fairytale love story; we can’t edit out awkward silences in real life. The characters are shown exactly as they are — they feel nervous, self-conscious, and vulnerable, which makes it so easy to relate. The scene when Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Nora’s husband (John Magaro) meets for the first time still makes me cringe. Celine Song said she purposely kept the two actors apart and filming that scene actually was the first time they met to capture that energy.
As I watched, I found myself thinking about just how different these two movies are. 500 Days of Summer uses bright colors and a jubilant tone when Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in love. In contrast, Past Lives has a desaturated, cool-toned color palette. Even when the two are together, it feels gloomy. This is part of the movie’s charm — Nora is already married by the time the two reunite. We get plenty of screentime with her husband and he is a 3-dimensional character who we can’t help but sympathize with. We feel torn watching Nora and Hae Sung interact and the somber tone of the movie fits perfectly.
Restrained Longing and Subtle Details
If you have not seen the movie, please skip to Bridging the Gap Between Cultures to avoid spoilers.
500 Days of Summer puts Summer on an impossible pedestal and Joseph Gordon-Levitt never truly sees her for who she is, only who he wants her to be. In Past Lives, part of the question is how much do these two characters love each other for who they are and how much do they love each other for who they remember them to be? They had not seen each other in person for 24 years and they’ll often reminisce about their childhood. Nora even says to Hae Sung that she’s not the girl he remembers. That girl doesn’t exist anymore. But at the same time, that doesn’t make their connection any less pure.
There were so many great details in the costuming as well — Nora’s loose, oversized clothing matched her self-assured, confident body language. She’d lean back on her arms, relaxed. In contrast, Hae Sung had slicked back hair, tucked in shirt, hunched shoulders, to match his unsure demeanor. The two of them share just as many moments of silence as they do words.
The script is so delicate and beautiful. Greta’s delivery wasn’t over-the-top and the fact that they were the only two people who spoke Korean in that bar added a level of intimacy. The language shielded them away from the rest of the world. Celine Song’s use of close-up shots as well as the controlled emotions in their performances pair so well together. At the end of the movie, we see them say goodbye to each other and there is so much left unsaid. What makes their relationship haunting is precisely what’s left to the unknown. I’d sum up Greta Lee and Teo Yoo’s performances in one word: restrained. The whole movie is about “what ifs” — all the other lives they could’ve had together precisely because they cannot be together in this one.
Bridging the Gap Between Cultures
I’ll be quick here because I’m not really saying much here that I haven’t said before — I loved the touches of Korean culture. I loved the use of in-yeon in the movie that ties the two together — it reminded me of the legend behind the Qixi festival in China (two lovers who can only reunite once a year) and the stories of red strings of fate in many Asian cultures. As a Taylor Swift fan, I was also reminded of invisible string, which is supposedly inspired by the red string.
As I was watching, I couldn’t be sure (as I don’t speak Korean), but I thought Nora’s Korean sounded more fluent by the end of the film than when she first started talking to Hae Sung. When they first Skyped, he even pointed out how stilted her Korean was. In an interview, Greta Lee confirmed that talking to him reconnected her in many ways to the language and culture of her childhood. As Asian Americans (or immigrants in general), we often feel like we don’t truly belong in either society. But Celine recounted her story of meeting with her childhood friend with her husband and described it in such an empowering way:
“I remember feeling this… chip on my shoulder about being ESL. But then I was sitting there thinking: No, I feel so, so powerful. These two worlds are collapsing — time and space is folding on itself — because of me. And I didn’t have to do anything except exist. I just had to be me and that was enough.” — Celine Song
One of my favorite lines is when Nora’s husband tells her that she dreams in Korean. She goes somewhere that he can’t follow her and he wanted to learn Korean to know what she was saying. It’s so simple yet so vulnerable. There are certain parts of her that she can’t share with him, that he won’t ever experience the same way she does. Perhaps that’s why she never went to see the Statue of Liberty with him — he won’t connect to it quite the same way.
A Small Movie with a Big Heart
This movie is a breath of fresh air to the industry. You strip back all the CGI, big budget sets, and A-list actors and at its core, Past Lives is a beautiful story. Like Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, this movie is about the “what ifs” and human connection.
I’m no expert on cinematography, but there was one shot in particular that I loved of Nora and Hae Sung on the subway. They’re holding on to the pole, looking at each other and the camera is in the next car, peering in through the glass windows of the two doors. The physical barrier makes us feel like we’re peeping in on an intimate moment between the two.
Similarly, I loved the shot at the end of the movie when adult Hae Sung and Nora look at each other and then it flashes to 12-year-old them in Seoul for a few seconds. The fact that the two wander to Jane’s Carousel in Dumbo for their reunion further evokes the childlike innocence in their relationship.
I highly recommend watching Past Lives, it is incredibly touching and I can’t wait for more people to discover it.
Now to highlight fellow Letterboxd users who loved it as much as I did (and follow me @xusarah1 if you’d like):
