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There are many moments in Past Lives that discuss the concept of fate, or as described in the film, “in-yeon.” According to the film’s protagonist, “in-yeon” is something that Koreans say in order to seduce someone else. Yet these coincidences in the lives of its characters only keep bringing them together, almost like the two of them were meant to be, and it becomes too hard to really see them as chance encounters but as fate. Which very well may be the best way to describe the nature of the romance in Celine Song’s first film. It’s a love story about what could have been, but also where these people are in their present lives, and where they’re set to go in the future.

Nora (Greta Lee) is a Korean-born woman living in the United States together with her husband, Arthur (John Magaro). During her childhood in South Korea, she was best friends with Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), who had a crush on her at the time. After Nora leaves South Korea to immigrate with her parents to America, she reunites once again with Hae Sung as an adult – first via online communication but eventually in person. These encounters that Nora and Hae Sung share with each other after having not seen one another for so long set the course for what may be a love that once was, or could have been – but that’s only the surface of what makes Past Lives so beautiful.

Being Celine Song’s first feature as a writer-director, the craft on display here is remarkable. There’s not a single moment that feels like it’s off, every moment seems built to create such an intimate connection between a very platonic relationship, because the thought that these people were once in love isn’t so easy to escape. It’s through the way that Celine Song is staging these moments where you’re made to reminisce about similar experiences that you’ve had with others in your life – and whether they were meant to be romantic or not. But sometimes, even the most romantic moments that people experience can be felt in these platonic friendships. Here, it results in maybe some of the most beautiful moments put on a screen in a while.

It also begins slowly but surely, with the glimpses into Nora’s life in South Korea as a child. Even as children, you get a sense of how she and Hae Sung have begun to develop feelings for one another. It feels naïve at first, but at the same time, it plays into the concept of a “past life” that the two of them could have shared with one another, if Nora ended up staying in South Korea. In her present life, while she is married to a white American man, Nora still sees herself thinking about what a life with her and Hae Sung could have looked like, especially as they get caught up with one another after so many years of not having any contact with one another. The two of them end up going around New York like tourists on a romantic getaway, as if there was something that was supposed to happen between the two that ended up unrealized.

Even then, her current life is one that seems happy. Nora is happily married to Arthur, but Hae Sung’s own search for Nora has made her into a permanent part of his mind. Arthur submits in order to allow Hae Sung his moment with Nora after not having seen her for so long, knowing that the two of them were childhood sweethearts. But this also puts into question how he sees himself in relation to his own wife and her childhood friend from South Korea. It’s an interesting dynamic which Song chooses to interrogate here, in part because of what’s easy to perceive in these interracial relationships, especially when there’s a case where one person has more to say on a certain matter than the other. There’s a distance formed here, which ends up becoming rather devastating, which might be the best testament to where the film works its magic. It also works to create wonderful performances out of Lee, Yoo, and Magaro – all of whom are devastating in their own ways.

Like any great love story, Past Lives is one that takes itself slowly. But even those moments that feel small to us can take us by surprise in some form. Yet, the film makes it clear it isn’t only about being in love. It’s all about the opportunities that escaped us, and how we react to them when it seems like they caught up where it might be too late. Is it wrong to want to open the doors up once more? Was it always in the question between Nora and Hae Sung, even as they’ve lived so far apart from one another for so long? The answers aren’t always going to be simple. It only takes as much as one look in the other’s face to see that there was something that could have been.

Watch the trailer right here.

All images via A24.

Directed by Celine Song
Screenplay by Celine Song
Produced by David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler
Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
Release Date: June 2, 2023
Running Time: 106 minutes