Past Lives

In this extraordinary Academy Award-nominated film “Past Lives,” the Korean concept of inyeon is used to lead viewers into believing that Nora and Hae-sung are destined to be together – if not in this lifetime, then in the future.

Never risking discomfort, Song flattens a real-life anecdote of any truly messy feelings, resulting in a tone poem quasi-romance that’s actually serene to a fault. It’s a good movie too chronically polite to achieve anything like greatness.

What a touching story. A very striking way to look at relationships and the ways that love lingers.

Past Lives may be a weepie, but it’s a hyper-sophisticated one.

Plaudits to the principal cast, who do a miraculous job of portraying inner conflict and ecstasy with the merest tilt of a head, or subtle shift of a shoulder.

Song finds the political in the personal and avoids seeming indulgent or niche.

It is a heartbreaking film that is so masterfully made and profoundly sincere that you want to stay in its world regardless of the emotional cost.

As the credits roll and we’re given a moment to think about the movie in retrospect, it all just… hits different. And it’s what makes “Past Lives” all the more remarkable as a movie about the bittersweet intensity of love and longing.

Song composes this lyrical, melancholic film with the confidence of a director at the height of their career...[finding] pathos in the potentially mundane creases of a marital bed and a poor internet connection.

Past Lives is a film that leaves you breathless, and your heart aching, but in a good way. There’s something deeply comforting about knowing these feelings are universal.