A story of unrequited love and friendship across twenty-four years of two peoples lives. 

Na Young (Moon Seung-ah) and Jung Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min) are school friends and at the age of twelve share a date together before Na Young’s family emigrate to Canada. Twelve years later Na Young has changed her name to Nora (Greta Lee) and lives in New York. She discovers that Jung Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) has been trying to reconnect with her and they reignite their friendship via Skype and speak to each other regularly. However when life prevents either of them from visiting the other Nora asks for a break from their friendship. A further twelve years later and Nora is married to Arthur (John Magaro) when Jung Hae Sung travels to New York to finally see Nora again. 

Past Lives is achingly sad and beautiful. It tells us about the Korean saying “inyeon” which is untranslatable to English but is about the ties that bind people across past lives. It is fate and destiny wrapped together and the idea that we have connections with certain souls that we continue to share our lives with across our reincarnations. One of my absolute favourite films of all time is Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain which seems to capture this very idea perfectly and Past Lives is the sort of film that I immediately began to love as I was watching it. 

The plot revolves around conversations between our two leads across distances and time so the way this is presented is the key to our enjoyment and engagement. What stands out is the acting, the script (by writer/director Celine Song), the score by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen and the way the camera lingers and moves between them. All of these facets of the film come together perfectly to paint a picture of how strong these two people feel for each other but due to circumstances are never able to actually be together. But there is of course the possibility that in a future life that could be the case.

Writer/director Celine Song has managed to weave something magical together here and I could not help but feel that it was autobiographical in some way given how real it all feels. It has the same vibe as Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy where the relationships between the actors feel so real that it does not feel like you are watching actors. Greta Lee as Nora is absolutely sensational throughout and the final scene is utterly perfect and would rival the likes of Lost In Translation’s final melancholic scene. 

Wonderful.