PAST LIVES (A) - This remarkable debut feature never takes a false turn as it reveals a story that is deep, moving and engaging. It tells the story of two childhood friends from Seoul, South Korea, one of whom emigrates to Toronto at age 12 before ending up in New York as an adult.
Writer-director Celine Song has a lot to say here about identity and nostalgia. She conveys multiple nuanced ideas while weaving together an elegant and air-tight narrative. Greta Lee is riveting as the adult Nora (the western name she adopts), who balances practicality with passion as she carves out her path and persona. Teo Yoo is the hang-dog Hae Sung, who pines from Seoul and eventually books a ticket to New York for a reckoning with his would-be soul mate. The hang-up is that Nora is now married and has seemingly purged the remnants of puppy love from her young self.
Do not take any of the above as evidence of a trite potential love triangle. This film punches way above that weight level.
When Nora leaves with her family, there is no fanfare, and the relationship between the two pals (who once went on one cute date) gets locked in amber, with all the emotional consequences, healthy and unhealthy, that entails. (See also "The Eight Mountains," about two boys bonding at that age and then going their separate ways for years.) Nora gets curious about Hae Sung 12 years later, and the spark is definitely still there, but they don't meet in person, just over video. Flash forward another 12 years (the timeline symmetry is an asset), and Nora is now married to a fellow writer, Arthur (John Magaro), whom she met at a writing retreat around age 30. They have a loving but routine relationship (he's another 30-something addicted to video games), boho hipsters in the big city. They talk about how the other is not the type of person either one of them long dreamed of ending up with, but they seem appreciative of what they have.
Hae Sung re-enters the picture after he finally gets up the nerve to book a weeklong trip to New York to see Nora. When they meet on the street, that spark is once again ignited, but like 12 years earlier, it takes a different form. Hae Sung is handsome and engagingly moody, as well as alluringly single. What transpires takes up the second half of the film. A magical excursion to Brooklyn (at Jane's Carousel in Dumbo) echoes their previous chaste date as kids.
Lee is a radiant movie star, yet totally grounded, as she conveys the sweep of Nora's 20s and 30s -- her (shifting) career ambitions, her romantic needs, and her immigrant identity. Hae Sung's visit dredges up for her the question of whom she might have become had she stayed in Korea (besides being named Na Young). Nora, seemingly forever trapped between two worlds, explains to her husband the Buddhist concept of in-yeon, which incorporates the idea that the people you meet throughout your lives -- even in fleeting moments -- may have involved much deeper connections in past lives. Here, the past lives manifest as the past selves of one life, in addition to whatever previous iterations of the soul may have experienced.
All of this is rendered effortless by Song. She creates one big welling of emotion from sweet beginning to bittersweet end, culminating in one perfect, quick catharsis. She has an eye for visuals that invoke instant nostalgia. Her secret weapon here is Magaro, a crucial third leg to the stool. He has a hang-dog appearance but he is a deeper character than he appears. (In passing we learn that Arthur published a fat book; it looks like a novel and is titled "Boner.) Magaro splashed as the appealing young star of "Not Fade Away" and recently vamped as Silvio Dante in "The Many Saints of Newark." (TV viewers probably know him from "Orange Is the New Black" and "The Umbrella Academy.") A climactic scene (teased in the opener) places all three characters in a bar together -- at one point Nora and Hae Sung speak in Korean (which Arthur has only passing proficiency in), and later Arthur and Hae Sung talk without Nora present.
It's all such a quiet, tender rumination on the lives we either craft or fall into, how we are shaped by happenstance and destiny. It explores the alluring idea of the parallel lives we might lead if we could subdivide ourselves and pursue multiple friends and lovers, trying on various guises and exploring different aspects of our souls. It's lovely to think about all of that, but damn if the whole exercise doesn't slam you in the gut and plunge deep into that well of emotions.
BONUS TRACKS
The soundtrack is impeccable, both the music composed for the film and the obscure needle drops. A pivotal scene in the final reel, set in the bar, features John Cale in the background with 1974's "You Know More Than I Know," sounding more like Harry Nillsson:
The film's composers are Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen. Here is "Across the Ocean," a sample of the spare sounds they created:
Cat Power is featured in the trailer, but not the film, with "Stay":
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