by louise barretto

It’s very hard to make a romance film feel unique and new but writer-director Celine Song is able to subvert the usual tropes in her debut feature film, Past Lives, starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro. 

The film deftly shows different decades in Nora Moon (played by Greta Lee) and Hae Sung’s (Teo Yoo) life. As childhood friends, they have this innocent puppy love and have this magnetic pull towards each other. When Nora’s family migrates to Canada, she loses touch with Hae Sung. 12 years later, they reconnect again on social media but the distance and time zone difference seems too wide and Nora cuts off contact. 12 years later, Nora is married to Arthur (John Magaro) and Hae Sung is headed to New York City to see her. 

Teo Yoo is the one to watch, reminiscent of a younger Tony Leung. He’s able to show vulnerability without saying a word. It’s also refreshing to see Greta Lee finally headline a film. It’s about damn time. 

The theme that ties the story together is a Korean word called “In-Yun”, that means providence or fate. It’s a very Eastern way of thinking, very much the opposite of the Western idea of autonomy and free will. And this energy permeates all throughout the film. Song just lets things happen to the characters, almost as if they are just playing their parts in their fate and are in no way trying to manipulate the outcome at all. 

What I love about the film is that it’s able to transcend the mundanity of life by showing the mundane. In the words of Taylor Swift, what are the invisible strings that tie one to another? Maybe its “In-Yun”, but we will never know. Only Nora and Hae Sung would know, since nothing huge happens in the film, but their internal worlds are brimming with possibilities. Words are unsaid, things undone. And maybe the concept of In-Yun saves these two because they know if they met in their past lives which is manifesting in the present, they will meet again in their future lives.