Past Lives: An evocative, emotion-inducing romantic drama that will overwhelm you

Past Lives (M, 106mins) Directed by Celine Song *****

An evocative, emotion-inducing romantic drama that will overwhelm you when you least expect it. A pitch-perfect paean to childhood crushes and lost loves. This generation’s Before Sunset, but with more than a hint of Nora Ephron’s When Harry Met Sally… or Sleepless in Seattle mixed in.

Perhaps the latter’s down to the mainly New York setting, but more likely South Korean-Canadian writer-director Celine Song’s smart, sensitive script that’s filled with memorable moments and witty, yet poignant observations.

In a way, playwright Song has actually riffed on Richard Linklater’s entire Before trilogy in a single film.

Set over the course of 24 years, we re-enter the lives of Nora and Hae Sung at 12-year intervals. Seoul classmates who walk home together from school every day, the pair (Seung Ah Moon and Seung Min Yim) vie for top marks, an unspoken competition that sometimes ends in tears.

But despite even her mother sensing their deep bond (even going so far as organising a date), it’s a friendship that’s about to be torn apart. Nora’s family are immigrating to Canada because her film director father and artist mother believe “Koreans don’t win the Nobel Prize for literature”.

Twelve years on and Nora (Russian Doll and The Morning Show’s Greta Lee) has shifted south to New York, while Hae Sung (Decision to Leave’s Teo Yoo) has completed his compulsory military service.

Looking up old Korean school friends on Facebook, Nora discovers that he had posted a request for information on her whereabouts a few months ago. Eventually they reconnect, delighting that the easy back-and-forth between them has not disappeared. As they talk about their respective lives, vague ideas of visiting one another are mooted, but each has a looming career opportunity that means a trip is unlikely in the next 18 months – she a live-in writer’s residency upstate, he an intensive language programme in China.

Perhaps out of frustration – and wanting to concentrate on her work – Nora suggests they reduce the frequency of their conversations and they simply, naturally drift out of each other’s orbit.

Now though, more than a decade later, Hae Sung has finally decided to make the journey to New York and reaches out to reconnect with Nora while there. Now married to Arthur (Carol’s John Magaro), she’s keen to see him, but Arthur wonders if Hae Sung is really just there for a holiday.

“What a good story this is,” he somewhat nervously jokes. “Childhood sweethearts who reconnect 20 years later, only to realise they were meant for each other. In the story, I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny.”

Song actually cleverly sets that dynamic and plants the seed in the audience’s mind right from the get go, opening with the trio drinking together in a bar at 4am, as an unseen observer tries to guess their respective relationships.

From that moment, we’re hopelessly and helplessly engrossed, desperate to know where Nora’s heart truly resides. For this is as much a story of her wrestling with the importance of her Korean heritage, as it is any romantic notions of fate, destiny or, as the Koreans call it, in-yun. There’s also a refreshing frankness and poignancy about the trio’s conversations that you don’t see in a traditional Hollywood film of this ilk. “I didn’t know that liking your husband would hurt this much,” Hae Sung admits at one point.

Be warned though, like Before Sunset, Past Lives is a film that doesn’t offer up easy answers or resolutions and will inspire plenty of post-credit debates amongst viewing companions. And – ultimately – perhaps that’s what makes it the must-see adult movie of the year so far.

In English and Korean with English subtitles, Past Lives opens in select Kiwi cinemas on August 31.