"You make my world so much bigger and I'm wondering if I do the same for you."
Seattle International Film Festival
Song resists sentimentality or explicit melodrama as the romantic film teases a love triangle at first with a soulful John Magaro co-starring as Nora's extremely decent Caucasian husband Arthur. Instead, Past Lives explores the emotional complexities of distance between young adults bonded by their shared childhoods and outsider experiences.
Told across three separate time periods, each twelve years apart, Lee's sumptuous performance of quiet glances, casual dialogue, and an effortless cool of confidence anchors the beautifully rendered story anchored in repressed East Asian cultural complexities. It's a star-making dramatic turn for the comic actor mostly known for scene-stealing supporting roles in comedies.
Lee and Yoo's natural ease and chemistry ground the wistful film of diasporic memories. How their long-distance friendship grows and fizzles before their reunion build a sense of melancholic tension sublimely. Its philosophical exploration of alternate paths and lives informed by our decisions makes the story all the more poignant.
Song's remarkable film is so thoughtfully measured in its approach to unfolding the internal drama of our Korean characters and their past histories of deep yearning and longing. Past Lives intimately unfolds with such a wondrous immediacy and insight into young immigrant experiences through its understated yet devastating choices.
Past Lives screened as the opening night film of the 2023 Seattle International Film Festival as part of the New American Cinema program. It also screens through VAFF at Fifth Avenue Cinemas on June 7th.
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