We’ve all wondered about friends and relationships from the past, but what if that connection stays strong through the decades? Would it be something that would change your perspective on your life now or is it something that you would push to the past? In the new A24 film Past Lives, these questions are examined as two childhood friends reconnect throughout different stages of their lives.
Nora Moon emigrated to Canada from Korea as a child, but her childhood crush never forgot her. Connected again in their college years and then again twelve years later, Nora and Hae Sung connect later in their adult lives after everything has changed. While Hae Sung still holds a torch for Nora, she has found her career and married someone else, and lives without the societal pressures and restrictions that he has to deal with back in Korea. Their friendship is still strong, the connection between the two friends makes it like no time has passed at all.
While Hae Sung imagines what their lives could have been together, Nora steadfast in her relationship that she describes as a rushed one to get a Green Card, doesn’t seem to question the what ifs in life. The movie seems to play a bit with the idea of chance and fate, while also dealing with the reality of life as well. It takes the ideas of a Korean culture and contrasts it with that of a Canadian-raised, now American woman who lives her life as she wants.
Past Lives is simply a story of missed connections, past friendships, and things that would never come to be. There isn’t any real conflict, which may leave you wanting more. But the resulting story is one that is sweet and pushes off the societal story norms of the lost love tropes. Does that missed connection and direction of your life change who you are and who you were meant to be? Or does it direct you to where you are meant to be all along? Is fate even a factor when it comes to love, or just situations leading you to the right person?
The movie meanders at times but takes you on a gentle path through the past and to the eventual realization that second-guessing your life won’t change where you are now. Past Lives is laying in select theaters now and opening nationwide this weekend.
Overall Rating:
About Past Lives:
(Limited release, Detroit date forthcoming): Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life, in this heartening modern romance.
Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
(A24)
Rated PG-13