Past Lives
Synopsis: A woman contemplates what direction, if any, fate is sending her when she (possibly) loves two men. (Streaming on Amazon Prime)
In Past Lives the fates of three interconnected people hang in the balance. Long distance romance is involved. Nora (Greta Lee) is a Korean-Canadian playwright living in New York. Her potential paramour is Jung Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), an engineer who lives in Seoul. Argh, transcontinental is tough enough, but transoceanic love affairs are even tougher. Well, I guess transcontinental lovers commuting between, say, Winnipeg, Canada and Buenos Aires, Argentina could make a pretty good case that they have equal barriers to togetherness. Although, I bet there aren’t any daters going between those two cities. If there are–again, doubtful– maybe they could split the difference and move to Costa Rica.
So, Nora and Hae Sung are not crazy people who got on the same dating app and declared that anyone within 7,000 miles was within datable territory. No, they met as kids in Seoul, South Korea when Nora was Na Young. We see them as twelve-year-old school mates. They are good friends and have a blossoming attraction to each other. Very cute– like they may not even know that they have a crush. But Na Young’s parents are planning to immigrate to Canada. They fancy themselves maple syrup connoisseurs, others call them fanatics. No, not really. They are artists. Although don’t ask me what they can do in Toronto that they can’t do in Seoul. Art installations specifically designed to be placed outside Tim Hortons coffee shops?
The day comes when it’s time to say annyeonghi gaseyo. This means ‘bye in Korean. It takes a long time to say, so the kids get to prolong their time together. They are both too shy about their feelings to say they’ll miss each other. So, yeah, Na Young and her little sisters choose Western names (Nora for our protagonist) and fly off to Canada with their parents. And a weird thing happens as she lives there– she loses being Korean and becomes Korean-Canadian.
12 YEARS LATER flashes on the screen and here is aspiring playwright Nora studying in NYC. And Hae Jung, after his obligatory stint in the military, is enrolled in an engineering program in Seoul. One day, out of the blue, Hae Jung reconnects with Nora through social media. They begin to bond again. It seems an emotional affair is inevitable. But, just like IRL, finding the time or money to actually see each other again, in the short term, isn’t possible. What to do?
FLASH FORWARD and Hae Jung has a little more time and money. Nora is still in NYC and she has met a writer, Arthur (John Magaro) a white guy with hipster facial hair and a novel out: Boner. Interesting…
We don’t learn what Nora is writing about, but she’s ambitious and there are some references to casting and rehearsals. Let’s hope that Boner is selling well enough to keep them in their trendy Brooklyn neighborhood ’til she’s in Tony territory.
Hae Jung arranges to visit NYC while he is re-thinking his current relationship with a girlfriend in Seoul. He contacts Nora; they haven’t communicated for quite a while. Nora tells her significant other, He’s not here to see me. He wants to see New York. And she believes it. Uh huh, says her S.O.
What ensues are conversations between Nora and Hae Jung about their lives and what they may be missing. (So glad they are going out and about because when Hae Jung arrived in New York, he was just hanging around his hotel having snacks.) They catch up and, later, exchange confidences.
Nora, seemingly self-possessed since she was a kid, tells Hae Jung that she cried day after day when she first moved to Toronto, but stopped when it seemed no one cared. Hae Jung admits that, before reaching out to her on social media, he found himself thinking longingly of her during his military training.
The two basically have (chaste) day dates. They roam Brooklyn’s waterfront, Manhattan a glittering colossus across the river. They take a ferry skirting lower Manhattan. It’s swoony. The scenes made me dream of an alternate world where all movies are set in New York (except Staten Island, for obvious reasons, haha). I bet this world would produce some good cinema. Back to Past Lives…
While pretty Nora with the perfect teeth swans around NYC with a quietly charismatic man who clearly loves her, Boner author Arthur sits at home playing video games. When Nora returns to their apartment after a day-date with Hae Jung , he soberly greets Hae Jung in Korean. We imagine his accent is bad (good that he’s trying), but what’s worse is that he is wearing an old man sweater; you know, shawl collar, dull color, covers the hips. Nora smiles nervously.
The three, Nora and the two men who love her, go out to have pasta; as one does when they are in a fraught triangle such as this. Nora and Hae Jung speak to each other in Korean. Arthur hangs his head. Buddy, you are going to need to up your game and get this guy on a flight back to Seoul. Be the charming, cute guy she fell for at the writers’ retreat in Montauk!
Writer-director Celine Song finds a way to have a contemporary take on relationships and careers while exploring Providence, or, as Nora explains it: In yun. In-yun is a Korean concept centered on the idea that people can have connections through different reincarnations. And these people are fated to encounter each other in other times. Sometimes they might be together for decades, or just have a quick interaction. Nora poetically describes it as a bird on a branch. No less real or beautiful. <<tears>> This seemed so Asian to me. A Westerner wouldn’t meaningfully refer to something so ephemeral. <<more tears>>
Past Lives uses a light touch to create real drama. I was thankful that this wasn’t a romantic comedy about the “problem” of a beautiful person who has too many suitors to choose among. Although I watch those movies too. But Past Lives is better because here you actually feel for the characters. And you don’t have to watch it ironically to enjoy it.
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