Review: Past Lives

Past Lives
(Spoilers)
Cert: 12A / 106 mins / Dir. Celine Song / Trailer

And so August finally threatens to bear some sensible cinematic fruit, as writer/director Celine Song's debut feature focuses on a young Korean woman who - having moved and settled in the USA - encounters a face from her past which stirs uneasy feelings of loss and regret. Greta Lee stars as aspiring playwright Na Young / Nora, with John Magaro as her American now-husband Arthur, and Teo Yoo as Jung Hae Sung, the childhood friend who threatens to upset the applecart.

Actually it's not entirely fair to blame Hae Sung. As pre-teens, he and Na Young are shown to have a competitive, belligerent relationship until their parents agree to escort them on one playdate after which Na Young moves with her parents to Canada (and chooses her Western-name of Nora). Twelve years later, after learning toxic-masculinity traits in the army, Hae Sung starts Facebook-stalking her. Rather than shutting this down, Nora strings out the long-distance nothing in an awkward, dangling way for months before ghosting him for another twelve years because she can't face the responsibility of her own personality. Shortly after this, Nora has married author Arthur (do you see what they did there) on the rebound purely to get a green-card while both share a cramped NYC apartment full of repressed guilt and existential ennui. When Hae Sung decides he's finally going to visit the USA and asks to meet Nora again naturally she agrees, because the best possible thing for everybody here is a gamophobic woman introducing her emotionally anaesthetised ex to her brittlely insecure husband so that they can all be the same level of unhappy.

TEST

All art is subjective of course and every film is its own Rorschach test. Despite clear moments of intended poignancy Past Lives compares well with Brian De Palma's Scarface, in that it's proof that you don't need to base your screenplay around likeable characters; engaging ones sliding into the morass of their own appalling decisions (and/or lack thereof) can be enough. The players in this game have their foibles and flaws shown, explained, highlighted and underlined at every single turn. It's not that Nora, Hae Sung or Arthur have no redeeming features, just that the film wallows in their repeated failure to learn from past mistakes. As lessons go it's pretty blunt and Celine Song proves herself to be the master of 'the awkward moment'. In fact this one lasts for an hour and three quarters.

On the plus-side, Shabier Kirchner's cinematography is gorgeous; colour palettes have rarely looked so expressive and the use of light and shadow is sublime. Keith Fraase's diting is delicate and the overall pacing is deliberately languid, reflective of the protagonists' reluctance to grow. We spend a massive amount of time watching the non-relationship between Na Young and Hae Sung, and then comparatively none with her actual husband Arthur, so that when the marriage begins to show serious cracks there's little at stake for the audience other than imagining Arthur as the This Is Fine dog.

SAVER

That said, the premise and performances here are strong enough that the Past Lives could easily have been 20 minutes shorter with no detrimental effect to the story. And fair play to Song, it could easily have been a more mawkish, uplifting and chocolate-box take, but she's chosen to show life at its needlessly complicated worst. Thanks, mate. The fact that I didn't particularly enjoy myself doesn't mean the film doesn't work, of course; it's supposed to be imperfect. Arguably, me disliking just about every speaking character onscreen means that it's doing precisely what it's supposed to. Well done, I guess*¹.

Oh, and repeatedly throwing in ancient folklore about the titular 'past lives' doesn't mean anything if your main character debunks that the very first time it's mentioned. Also by her. Then again Nora's wrong about literally everything else here, so...

*¹ For clarity, me disliking Past Lives was not a foregone conclusion. The trailer looks great and I was genuinely worried it was going to leave me sobbing in the auditorium. So perhaps the subsequent relief and surprise of me loving the performances and just despising the characters themselves was a good thing? Yeah, I don't think so either. ^{[ BACK ]}

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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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