Nora (Moon Seung-Ah, Greta Lee) leaves South Korea at age 12, and emigrates to America to pursue a writing career. She leaves behind her childhood sweetheart, Hae Sung (Leem Sung-Min, Teo Yoo) and sets off to start a new life. Hae Sung continues to carry a torch for Nora, and 12 years after Nora emigrates. contacts her through social media, and the two begin talking through Skype. Nora abruptly ends the Skype chat, and says she must concentrate more on her writing career.
Shortly after Nora stops speaking to Hae Sung, she meets Arthur (John Magaro) at a writer’s retreat. They sleep together, get married to get Nora a green card, and settle down in the East Village. Meanwhile, Hae Sung, knowing that Nora is married, finally comes to visit Nora in New York City? Does anything happen between the former childhood sweethearts?
Past Lives is supposed to be this revelatory film about romance, but the problem with this film is that it reveals nothing. The marriage between Nora and Arthur seems to be a loveless marriage of convenience for Nora, she seems thoroughly bored by him. There are no intellectual or physical sparks to speak of. The only time Nora shows any emotion at all is when she is thinking about or talking to Hae Sung, but instead of admitting their feelings, both Nora and Hae Sung sublimate their feelings, and pretend not to care for each other. And why is Arthur so agreeable throughout this film? He should be angry or jealous, or both, he is neither. Arthur is a jellyfish. He seems to be saying, ‘Sure, Hae Sung escort my wife all around New York and I won’t even come along.’ For this to be a truly powerful film, it must be emotionally honest with the audience about these characters. Past Lives does not do that. Instead, it wraps itself in Korean religious doubletalk to hide its lack of honesty about relationships. If writer Celine Song meant this to be autobiographical, why would she paint herself in such a poor light? There are better movies than this about heartbreak and unrequited love than this one. Any of Wong Kar Wai’s films are much better than Past Lives, even some Bollywood films delve into self-sacrifice as an act of love. Unfortunately, Past Lives does none of this.
The acting is very good. Greta Lee is good as the ambitious Nora, but the script makes her not so ambitious romantically. She seems to settle for milquetoast Arthur, and seems to shut down any romantic feelings she has for Hae Sung, which doesn’t make Nora a likeable character, but Lee does her best to make Nora sympathetic. Teo Yoo is even better as the stoic Hae Sung, who never lets his feelings show, because he’s a Korean man, and they aren’t supposed to show their feelings, according to Celine Song. John Magaro is ok as Nora’s bland husband. He’s a little too accepting of things that are going on around him, again, the fault of the script, not the actor.
Director Celine Song tries to throw some visual flourishes into the film, like an actual fork in the road when the 12-year-olds separate. That’s clever, but the rest of the movie is a slog. The pacing is slow, and the narrative drags, and it drags the audience along, whether they want to go along or not. Finaly, the cinematography is grainy. This is an unappealing aesthetic for a romantic film, it looks more like a crime drama viewed through an gritty lens.
Past Lives: Should be passed over.
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