There are no aliens or robots or alien robots or time travel or superheroes or apocalypses or multiverses in Past Lives — although some of the same themes about life that appear in those science-fiction and fantasy stories can be found in this very earthbound, believable, compelling human drama.  It’s about people and the connections between them, and how they deal with feelings and emotions when certain connections are made, or broken.

Celine Song’s drama follows young Na Young (Moon Seung-ah) when she moves from Korea to Toronto, leaving behind a boy she likes named Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min).  He is not happy that she leaves but can do nothing about it.  Twelve years later Na, now Nora (Greta Lee) learns that Hae Sung (Teo Too) is looking for her online, and they reconnect.  Soon they are happily chatting away and dreaming about actual visits — but Nora pulls away, wishing to focus on her writing career, which is taking her to New York.  Twelve years later, the two friends reconnect again, and this time it’s in person in New York.  Nora grapples with the knowledge that Hae really likes her, which might put quite a strain on her marriage to Arthur (John Magaro).  How these characters work things out forms the drama of Past Lives.

Thank goodness some filmmakers still make movies about real people.  Characters, of course, but real, ordinary characters who cannot fly or shoot laser beams out of their eyes, or steal expensive artworks for fun or operate major drug cartels.  Nora is a writer, evidently of plays, who observes the life around her and writes about it.  Arthur is a writer with one book to his credit, one with a terrible title (seen only in passing).  They meet as writers and they act like writers, but it would have been nice to see how they write, or witness some evidence of their writing to make them even more real.  The most impressive character is engineer Hae Sung.  Nora is remarkably oblivious to his feelings for her, but it is his longing for her that drives the plot and tenor of the story to its very compelling conclusion.

This isn’t a great movie; it does seem somewhat underdeveloped to me.  Perhaps I am accustomed to, and jaded by, so many movies providing extra machinations to boost the climaxes of their stories to actual climaxes.  This one merely presents a trio of characters who, given the circumstances, could react in a multitude of ways to each other.  That’s the hook — what will they do?  Writer-director Song ensures that they act and react in believable, often restrained, often charming ways, understanding that how people react to each other is the basic essence of human drama.  The film begins with a question about the three characters together, and the answer is unknowable.  By the time the story has concluded we know who they are and how they feel about each other, and that’s the magic of the movie.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  25 February 2024.