Past Lives (2023)

IMDb plot summary: Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea. Twenty years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.

Directed by Celine Song. Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro.

Past Lives tells the story of a man and a woman who first met as children in South Korea, before her family immigrated to the United States. They reconnect a decade later when they're both young adults, and then again a decade after that. This is a very slow-moving, quiet movie that is mostly just the characters talking together, and that can be very difficult to do well, but these characters are so beautifully drawn and compelling portrayed that they instantly drew me into their story. It's truly an incredible feat of writing and acting that is able to make us sympathize with them from moment one. In a flashier, more comedic romance, I'd have recognized it as the simple fact of our leads having chemistry together, but it took me nearly the whole movie to be able to pinpoint why I was so invested in these two. The ending is lovely and feels very fitting, and I found myself slightly overwhelmed with emotion and just wanting to cry -- in the best possible way. Absolutely worth a watch, and one of my favorites of 2023.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Past Lives > Skyfall

Past Lives > Dark Passage

Past Lives > The Legend of 1900

Past Lives < The Great Dictator

Past Lives < Dick Tracy

Past Lives > Eyes Without a Face

Past Lives < Umberto D.

Past Lives > Citizen Kane

Past Lives > I.Q.

Past Lives < White Christmas

Past Lives < Les Miserables in Concert (1995)

Past Lives < Transamerica

Final spot: #401 out of 3875, or 90%.