'Past Lives' A Review

Past Lives is a drama about two childhood friends Nora(Greta Lee) and Hae Sung(Teo Yoo) who drift apart and reconnect over three separate time periods in their lives. 

Lee is captivating in the lead role, its wonderful to see her get the full spotlight in a feature, she shines. She's grounded, fully lived in, and fascinating. She's got great chemistry with Yoo who's also perfectly cast. For all the distance and the cutting back and forth in time, the film ultimately comes down to the two of them and they are superburb in their roles. The supporting cast has significantly less to do and the only one that really has a role of any substance is John Magaro as Arthur Nora's husband. Magaro is miscast here paired with a script that doesn't do him any favors. He is profoundly irritating to watch and the script seems to involve him to tease out this love triangle for plot purposes but the emotional reality of Nora and Arthur's marriage and Nora's conflicting feelings about Hae Sung in the third act all the actors struggle to imbue with coherence let alone believability.

The film looks beautiful, the editing, the way it flows through time, is immaculate. The score is subtle and enhancing. The production design, all around, is a hit. The big problem is theme. Or more accurately themes. The film doesn't seem to know or want to clarify what it is actually about or what it is trying to say. This quality of thematic overload and themes of nostalgia/regret are very similar to last years Aftersun. Similarly this confusion/ambiguity makes the film worse. The intent is, perhaps, to put the burden of interpretation on the viewer, to make the film "layered" with meaning but the result is that the actual delivery of the narrative is hamstrung, unclear. Is it about culture, immigration, regret, nostalgia, love, adulthood? The film cannot decide, it is trying to be about them all and as a result not really about any of them in any potent way.

A beautiful looking film with two excellent leads fumbles the third crucial competent- story.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

Rent It.