Worth: $18.00
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Cast:
Teo Yoo, Greta Lee, John Magaro
Intro:
… starts slow but then ramps up into an absolute stunner of a romantic drama, populated by fleshed-out and endlessly likeable characters who explore deeply relatable aspects of loves and lives that could have been.
The film debut of Korean-Canadian playwright Celine Song (Endlings) begins with people-watching. As Shabier Kirchner’s camera focuses on Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), Nora (Greta Lee), and Arthur (John Magaro) sitting at a bar together, two off-screen voices openly wonder “Who do you think they are to each other?” What makes them them, and what makes them connected?
There are questions that all storytellers, Celine Song included, end up asking themselves when it comes to crafting their narratives. At the tail-end of 2020, when she live-streamed a production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull made entirely in The Sims 4 (a feat of quarantine creativity up there with Bo Burnham’s Inside and the screenlife films of Rob Savage), viewers watched her construct characters and their personalities from wholecloth… until worries set in about actors pissing themselves mid-scene.
Of course, both in films and in real life, we don’t have the luxury of heads-up displays to glance such things from afar. As such, Song works backwards from that same god’s eye perspective to sketch out the characters of Past Lives. A good chunk of the dialogue consists of people asking each other questions, about themselves and how they see those around them, as well as delving into Buddhist philosophy about inyeon: the karmic affinity between two people across multiple interactions and reincarnations. It’s basically an interrogation of the human condition, done by interrogating characters that have to live with that condition. Or, in less poncy terms, why are we like this?
The film can feel a bit slow while it’s in its construction phase, but that gradual build-up leads to potent results once all three parties finally get together in the same room. It’s a love triangle that avoids the alpha-male ‘I must mark my territory’ noncery of most rom-coms, and instead highlights a similar level of insecurity between both of the men in the triangle… as a result of them both recognising each other as good people with healthy relationships with Nora, romantic or otherwise.
All three have their neuroses, from Arthur questioning how ‘good’ his and Nora’s story is as a couple, to Nora dealing with her muddled connection with her Korean heritage, to Hae Sung basically living out the lyrics to Ben Folds’ ‘From Above’. But rather than feeling strained (or worse, being irritatingly meta about it a la Sleepless in Seattle), it’s all sweet and endearing and, quite frankly, a welcome reprieve from the genre’s usual cliches in the mainstream.
It’s a situation where any conceivable result within this triangle could be considered a happy ending… but the question of what could have been always remains. Are we connected by fate, or by happenstance? Cosmic alignment, or convenience worn into a comfortable shape? In keeping with the dialogue, these are posed as questions without definitive answers, leaving just that spacious chasm of the unknown that we all end up filling in with our own little multiversal theories.
Past Lives starts slow but then ramps up into an absolute stunner of a romantic drama, populated by fleshed-out and endlessly likeable characters who explore deeply relatable aspects of loves and lives that could have been. It explores well-known tropes and ideas within its genre, but in invigorating and casually exciting new ways to highlight how even the vacuum of possibility can make for deep, heart-squeezing happiness when you least expect it.
Is someone cutting onions in here?
