I Wanted To Like Past Lives But I Couldn't
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL.
When I saw the theatrical poster for the first time, I came into watching Past Lives with the expectation that it would be a heart-breaking romance. Oh, how disappointed I was to find out that it wasn't. Hae Sung and Na Young not ending up together was an inevitable and predictable outcome, but that's not the issue. The core issue lies with how the movie reaches it very early and then uses their thinly woven connection to move the plot forward in a failed attempt to convince viewers of any romantic tension between them after everything that has transpired. They are introduced as childhood friends and classmates in South Korea, who are on the cusp of developing romantic feelings for each other. They only go out on one date, which was prearranged by their parents. Her sudden emigration to North America at the behest of her parents afterwards stunts their romance of any further development. They reconnect twelve years later via Facebook and Skype. Here we see that Hae Sung has been pining for Na Young. Enamoured by this, she strings him along for a while until she decides to end their stint of Skype calls to continue pursuing her career ambitions in New York. She attends a writer's retreat, where she meets Arthur, and the two fall in love and get married. Meanwhile, he moves to China for a Mandarin cultural exchange and dates another woman. Twelve years later, Hae Sung decides to visit New York to meet up with Na Young. The two of them talk it out alone and exchange long, meaningful looks at each other, while Arthur chooses to be hyper-considerate of them and risk his marriage to Na Young. In the end, Na Young decides to stay with her husband and Hae Sung is forced to return to South Korea without her.
I have more some things to say about Past Lives. First: 106 minutes is too long to tell a story like this without becoming tedious. Much of the movie is filled with pretentious shots, long pauses in dialogue and unnecessary exposition. Trimming its length down to something like a 20-minute short would have greatly benefited it. Second: It's so outlandish for a guy like Hae Sung, who grows up to be an adult in his 30's, to hold onto one crush for 24 years straight. People grow and change. For example: people can have multiple crushes throughout their lives until they settle with someone or not. I will say that his actor, Teo Yoo, gave the best performance out of the entire cast though. Na Young, on the other hand, is cold, self-centered and manipulative. She places her career ambitions on a pedestal above everything else. The decisions she's made in her new life in America indicate that she doesn't want anything to do with Korea anymore. Greta Lee's performance as the character fell flat in my opinion, which is rather unfortunate because this was the first time I've watched her on-screen and now I'm left with a bad impression of her as an actress. Both the stark differences between how these characters are written and the levels of performances given from the actors simply don't sell any romantic tension between them to the viewers. As for Arthur, he's way too good and understanding of a husband for Na Young. His selfless love for her blinds him from seeing her manipulation. John Magaro does a good job acting here considering his small amount of on-screen time compared to his counterparts. Third: A lot of ideas and themes are touched upon in this movie but they never fully explored in a satisfactory way that helps craft a compelling narrative. Although the movie's story does feature immigration, it fails to flesh out more details on Na Young's transition into her new life as an immigrant in America and how it highlights the gains and losses she experiences from that. Hae Sung visiting her could be interpreted as his way of finding closure if the plot was written differently, but his disconnection from her spanned too long to make that believable. These are just a few examples.
Overall, I think Past Lives is a grossly overrated and pretentious movie. It's not a masterpiece. Its ill-executed plot, tedious pacing, surface-level exploration of ideas and themes, mixed-bag of acting performances and flatly-written characters make it undeserving of that label. I really wanted to like it but I couldn't.
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