This story discusses minor plot details from the film “Past Lives,” premiering in theaters Friday.
Right in the opening scene of “Past Lives,” there’s a sense of how one-of-a-kind the movie will turn out to be. We see three people sitting at a bar. But we, the audience, are peering at them from a distance.
Unusually, the scene is shot from the point of view of two other people off-screen, whom we hear conversing somewhere nearby. They wonder out loud who the trio are, who they are to each other, and what they might be doing at this place at this time of night. It’s a clever opening, mimicking the way we too might “people-watch” while sitting at a pub or café. We create stories about someone we see from afar, and make assumptions about them that may or may not be true.
In the film, we later return to this scene after learning that the three people are Nora (Greta Lee), who is deep in conversation with her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) while her husband, Arthur (John Magaro), sits beside them. And we find out what exactly has led to this particular moment: decades of distance and longing, and a few attempted reconnections between Nora and Hae Sung, while their individual lives have progressed and diverged down two very different paths.
When it premiered to rapturous reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in January, “Past Lives,” the feature directorial debut of acclaimed playwright Celine Song, was likened to Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy of walking-and-talking romances. It’s an apt comparison, especially to the series’ second installment, “Before Sunset.” In the 2004 film, the central characters — Céline (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) — unexpectedly meet nine years after an initial chance encounter in their early 20s. Now in their 30s and well into adulthood, they stroll through the streets of Paris and along the Seine, reflecting on the years that have passed, lamenting their sources of regret and exchanging some brutally honest truths.
Similarly, some of the most emotionally shattering scenes in “Past Lives” involve Nora and Hae Sung walking and talking throughout New York, where Nora lives and works as a playwright. It’s the first time they’ve physically seen each other since they were 12, when Nora, then known as Na Young, immigrated with her family to Canada from South Korea. Now, more than two decades later, the pair reconnect while meandering through the city streets on a beautiful summer day and hopping on a ferry along the East River. There’s the same languid, meditative mood of films like “Before Sunset,” the ones that leave you in an introspective state long after the credits roll.
It’s natural to compare a new piece of work to something similarly great from the past. But that doesn’t quite do “Past Lives” justice. And a simple logline — childhood sweethearts meet again after decades apart — also fails to adequately capture the layer after layer the movie lays bare as it unfolds. At every turn, “Past Lives” resists the urge to fit into a neat and tidy box — and that’s what makes it great.
It’s quietly surprising, like when you expect a character to do one thing but they do another. For instance, when Nora and Hae Sung first reconnect in their early 20s, they exchange Facebook messages and chat over poor-quality Skype calls. But she abruptly decides to end their communications, fearing he’s a distraction from her budding writing career. Or, when Hae Sung visits New York 12 years later, it’s Arthur who is particularly understanding and convivial, seeming even a bit eager for Nora to see Hae Sung again. He jokes about her leaving him to run away with Hae Sung.
There’s also the way the movie is filmed. In several of the walking-and-talking exchanges, we’d expect to see tight shots of Nora and Hae Sung’s facial expressions. Instead, the movie uses close-ups sparingly. Many of these scenes use wide and sweeping shots, like when we hear Nora and Hae Sung chatting while appearing as two small specks in Brooklyn Bridge Park, with the lower Manhattan skyline gleaming behind them. We’re kept at a distance, much like the one that has come between these two characters over the years.
At one point, Arthur, a novelist, notes to Nora “what a good story this is,” and that “in the story, I’d be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny,” he says. In a lesser movie, that remark might feel too meta, indiscreetly winking at the audience. But here, it feels right to deploy it just this once. It is a good story that at times seems too good to be true (though it is actually based on Song’s real life).
The movie’s title and its central motif reference the Korean concept of “inyeon” between two people. It roughly translates to “providence or fate,” as Nora explains to Arthur when they first meet at a writers residency, soon after she decides to stop communicating with Hae Sung in their 20s. The connection between two people is the result of a unique set of circumstances building up as layers of inyeon over many years and many past lives.
Maybe in another life, she and Hae Sung would have ended up together. But in this one, she’s with Arthur. It’s the life she’s living and the life she’s built for herself. Perhaps there’s no use in dwelling on the past or wondering about what could have been. Maybe we’re all exactly where we’re supposed to be.
Sometimes when we talk about fate, especially in stories in the popular imagination, the concept evokes a sense of candy-coated movie magic. But Nora is cleareyed, and where the movie lands feels real and honest. It’s yet another way that “Past Lives” doesn’t take the form of something existing, but creates a shape of its own.
Unionized TV and film writers, including “Past Lives” writer-director Celine Song, are currently on strike over issues like pay and working conditions.