Jordyep

5/10

Ngl I wanted a lot more from of this. It’s quite well executed technically, but the core of this is nothing more than basic, formulaic schmaltz. Within 15 minutes you know exactly how this thing will play out. In fact, you could give this script to a Hollywood studio and without any major tweaks they should be able to make a cheesy crowdpleaser out of it. Not that this movie is entirely free of cheeseball tropes regardless, just look at the obvious presentation choices made during the big reunion moment. Needless to say, this is not the _Before_ trilogy, what’s on its mind thematically isn’t particularly deep or interesting. Maybe I’m just saying that because I’m not a spiritual person, but isn’t this the kind of stuff that’s better suited for animated Disney movies? This isn’t a mature art film, which would be fine if it didn’t have the facade of being that. It also makes some really odd calls in regards to what to focus on. It doesn’t bother to develop the relationship of the young Nora and Hae Sung, right when Nora meets her American husband we get another time jump; these aren’t very satisfying choices dramatically. Thankfully there’s a lot to appreciate technically (the lighting, the long takes, the precise editing and blocking, etc.), but overall I think this is being massively overrated. 5/10

Cinema_Snobb

0/10

Celine song directed this wonderful and emotionally complex film about holding on to the past no matter how fleeting it is. Ha Young is a young girl living in Korea. She has a crush on a boy at school named Hae Sung. The time comes when her family is immigrating to Canada. It is devastating to young Hae, who is going to miss his friend. Twelve years go by and Ha is now living in New York City and goes by the name of Nora. One day while browsing the internet she looks up Hae out of curiosity. She contacts him and learns that he has also been looking for her. They talk online for awhile, but Nora worries that the time is being taken away from what she should be doing. They stop communicating. Another twelve years passes and Nora is now married to Arthur, a writer. Hao contracts her out of the blue and says he is coming to New York and wants to see her. The scenes when he arrives are golden. The dialogue and conversation and hidden innuendo are flawlessly displayed. They have so much to say to each other, yet so much is not said. It boils under the uneasy surface. The final moments of the film are devastating, but not in the way you might expect. It leaves a longing and emotional feeling that is hard to pinpoint. "Past Lives" soars as one of the years best films and in my opinion should not be missed.

r96sk

0/10

<em>'Past Lives'</em> - quality! It's an engaging watch, I was invested in the two main characters throughout. It does get, by design, extremely awkward at a certain moment towards the end, as I was squirming in my seat; shows how well made it is. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo are excellent, John Magaro plays his more minimal part well too. I don't have much else to note, it's simply an impressively made movie.

badelf

0/10

Wow. For a director, Celine Song, just coming out of the gate, this is quite an impressive film. The lead actress, Greta Lee, fit the role like a soft leather glove, which speaks volumes, both for her talent, and for Song's casting. Lee's Hollywood Critics Association Best Actress award is well-deserved. Song wrote an excellent screenplay, and her direction turned it into a stunning film. Kudos to A24 for taking a chance on her. I presume they are happy with the outcome. It's rather interestingly paced in a Buddhist or Asian kind of way - slow, meditative, and more is shown than is said. Overall, it's not a perfect film, but it's close. This isn't precisely a coming-of-age movie, but the plot revolves around that (perhaps even more difficult,) developing period between the ages of 20 and mid-30s. I've held a long-standing belief that our life chapters change every seven years. You know: there are seven chakras, seven days in a week, the Seven Sisters (Pleiades), or whichever mystical seven you'd like. Over the course of three of these "theoretical" chapters, this movie focuses on two relationships in the protagonist's life, from roughly twenty-one (7*3) to approximately forty-two (7*6). She was married at about the time of a chapter shift (7*5), as if to validate my weird belief. In my world, it all makes sense. This movie is certainly somewhat autobiographical, even by Song's own admission. It will be added to my Directors About Themselves list. I can't wait to see Celine's next project!

CinemaSerf

0/10

"Na Young" (Moon Seung-ah) and her best pal "Hae Sung" (Leem Seung-min) are pretty much joined at the hip at school. They do everything together. That is, until her family decide that they are going to emigrate to Canada. The young lad is a bit bereft, he doesn't really understand and he certainly doesn't approve! Anyway, off they go and after quite an hiatus, she discovers that he had tried to get in touch previously and so she now gets in contact. Now called "Nora" (and played by Greta Lee), she has married "Arthur" (John Magaro) and moved to NYC, but as they continue to chat online they gradually rebuild their friendship so that a visit from Korea to the USA seems the natural next step. What now ensues are a poignantly constructed series of reminiscences that extol the virtues and innocence of their childhoods but also illustrate how different they have become - even while the underlying bedrock of her relationship with him (and, for that matter with her husband) is probably just as solid - though not in quite the same way. There's a bit of pining, a bit of regret - but the film also fairly optimistically looks at where their lives have got to, and also of where their lives have yet to go. The acting isn't really much to write home about, though Magaro delivers well as the gooseberry. He doesn't speak much Korean and so the chats with their visitor frequently leave him in a sort of nervous, but polite, limbo. There are a few films around just now that focus on reconciliation of those separated by migration when South East Asia was still recovering from post war/French colonial rule - and this one is certainly one of the more interesting and honest. It's not without the odd bit of humour either - and is well worth a gander.