You and I, we are also In-Yun
A review of the Celine Song movie, Past Lives, starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro.
This whole thing shook me from start to finish. Yes, go in with the idea of fated love from childhood reuniting, but watch as the characters point out their sense of themselves in a story, and how they rise above and out of the expected, the simple romance that eschews real love in the interest of serving a warped and partial understanding of determinism. Change along with the processing internal world of a complexifying understanding of her life and history in every subtle flick of tension and release on Greta Lee’s face. Grow in empathy and identity with both Greta and Teo Yoo as they hold equal narrative sway in front of the camera lens. With a romantic indie drama like this, there was for me an expectation of subversion, of left turns, of open-endedness. And while some of that was met, I was still left weepstunned by a paralleled mirroring resolution twenty-four years (give or take 8,000) in the making. I will measure the impact of everything else I see this year by the standard set here.