Past Lives is a slow-burning romance about two people who lost touch as children and found each other again as adults. It is also a film about the weight of history, the accidents that shape a life, and the way people carry their past into their present without ever knowing it. Celine Song directs and writes her feature debut, and she builds the entire story around a single question: what happens when two people who were meant to be together miss each other across decades?
The answer is not a reunion. It is a lifetime of regret, compromise, and the quiet understanding that some connections are never recovered, even when they are found.
Trailer, via A24.
The Childhood Bond
The film opens in Seoul in 1999, where Na Young and Hae Sung are 12-year-old classmates. They develop feelings for each other and go on a playdate set up by their parents. The bond is tender and specific, built on shared jokes, shared spaces, and the kind of intimacy that comes from spending too much time together before either of them understands what it means. Then Na Young’s family moves to Canada, and the two lose contact.
Na Young changes her name to Nora. The name change is not a costume change; it is a break. The film follows the two leads over the course of 24 years, and that distance is the engine of the whole story. It is a story about absence, about the things that happen to you when you are not there to see them.
Reconnecting Through Screens
In 2011, Hae Sung has finished his military service and Nora has moved to New York City. They reconnect through video calls, but they are unable to visit each other. Nora is about to attend a writer’s retreat in Montauk, and Hae Sung is moving to China for a Mandarin language exchange. The distance between them is physical, but it is also emotional. They are both adults now, with lives that do not include each other, and the conversation they have is about what might have been rather than what is.
Nora eventually tells Hae Sung they should stop talking for a while. She wants to focus on her writing and her life in New York. The decision is not cruel; it is practical. The film does not sentimentalize it. It lets the moment land, and then it moves forward.
The Love Triangle
In 2023, Arthur and Nora are married and living in New York. Hae Sung, no longer with his girlfriend, travels to visit Nora. Arthur is the fulcrum of the story. He is the man Nora chose, and he knows it. He wonders if he is a roadblock in their love story, suggesting to Nora that if another man with similar appeal had met her at the same time, she would have married him to secure a green card for U.S. residency. He also expresses anxiety about cultural barriers in their relationship, highlighting Nora’s habit of sleep-talking in Korean: “you dream in a language that I can’t understand.”
These are not small worries. They are the worries of a man who has won, and who is still afraid of losing. Arthur’s presence in the story is not a villain’s; it is a complication. The film treats him with care, and it treats his fear with honesty.
The Buddhist Concept at the Core
The film introduces a Buddhist-derived concept called inyeon, or dependent origination. It is the idea that a relationship between two souls in the present life is influenced by interactions in thousands of past lives. This is not a plot device; it is the thesis of the film. The story is structured around the idea that the people we meet now are connected to us across time, and that our current relationships are shaped by the choices we made before we knew what we wanted.
The film is semi-autobiographical and inspired by real events from Song’s life. That grounding in personal experience shows in the specificity of the details. The playdate in 1999, the military service, the writer’s retreat in Montauk, the Mandarin language exchange, the Montauk retreat, the green card — none of these feel like placeholders. They feel like real events, with real stakes, and the film trusts the audience to sit with them.
The Reunion Scene
The film brings Nora, Hae Sung, and Arthur together in a speakeasy. The three of them are in the same room, but the tension is not verbal; it is emotional. The scene is tense, and it carries the weight of the film’s central question: whether the love between Nora and Arthur is enough, and whether Hae Sung’s return changes anything.
The Final Image
The film ends with a question mark. Nora and Arthur are still together, but the film leaves the question of Hae Sung open. The final image is not a happy ending; it is a question mark. The film asks whether the love between Nora and Arthur is enough, and it does not answer. It leaves the audience to decide.
The film is a meditation on the nature of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life. It is a film about the people we could have been and the people we are. It is a film about the weight of history, and the way people carry their past into their present without ever knowing it.
Key Facts Box
– Title: Past Lives (2023)
– Director: Celine Song
– Writer: Celine Song
– Runtime: 106 minutes
– Genres: Drama, Romance
– Premiere: Sundance Film Festival, January 21, 2023
– U.S. Release: June 2, 2023 (A24)
– South Korea: Limited release February 26, 2024, wide release March 6, 2024 (CJ ENM)
– Worldwide Gross: $42.7 million
– Accolades: Top ten films of 2023, National Board of Review; Top ten films of 2023, American Film Institute; Five nominations at the 81st Golden Globe Awards; Nominations at the 96th Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay
Past Lives is a film that respects its characters and its audience. It is patient, deliberate, and honest. It is not a film about fate; it is a film about the choices people make when they think they have no other options. It is a film about the people we could have been, and the people we are.
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