"Past Lives" is like a Stephen Sondheim song come to life.
You know the song "The Road You Didn't Take" from "Follies?" How it's all about the different doors that exist along the path of life, but you only get to enter one at a time, leaving you to wonder what was behind the other doors. And that one path isn't necessarily better or worse than another, just different. And that you'll never know what was behind the doors you didn't choose, and that anyway time will eventually smooth over the regret you feel at not choosing them instead. Except that it doesn't always, and you may never stop completely regretting the life you think you might have had, even if you don't really mind the life you do have.
This movie is that song. It's watching a beautifully defined female character convince herself and her husband that her life is what she wants it to be, and that she doesn't wish she'd taken a chance on the childhood sweetheart who comes back into her life after years apart and with whom she has off the charts chemistry. The actors who play the sweethearts as adults, Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, are both exceptional, but it's Lee who creates the most fascinating character. A bit cold, a bit distant, not always even completely likable in a way that's hard to define, a bit casually cruel to her husband who by anything the movie shows us can't be judged as anything other than a good, solid, and super understanding guy. But then there's that last scene that took my breath away, when we see the resolve not to feel emotions that would be inconvenient to feel give way, and we realize just how much has been roiling underneath the surface of Lee's character all along. It's magnificent and earned its right to leave me a quivering mess.
The movie is also a sensitive look at what it feels like to be an immigrant, torn between two cultures, and not sure whether the nostalgia you feel is what you really want or just the allure of the familiar.
A really great bit of counterprogramming in a summer that seems to be dishing up nothing but Marvel movies.
Grade: A.
You know the song "The Road You Didn't Take" from "Follies?" How it's all about the different doors that exist along the path of life, but you only get to enter one at a time, leaving you to wonder what was behind the other doors. And that one path isn't necessarily better or worse than another, just different. And that you'll never know what was behind the doors you didn't choose, and that anyway time will eventually smooth over the regret you feel at not choosing them instead. Except that it doesn't always, and you may never stop completely regretting the life you think you might have had, even if you don't really mind the life you do have.
This movie is that song. It's watching a beautifully defined female character convince herself and her husband that her life is what she wants it to be, and that she doesn't wish she'd taken a chance on the childhood sweetheart who comes back into her life after years apart and with whom she has off the charts chemistry. The actors who play the sweethearts as adults, Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, are both exceptional, but it's Lee who creates the most fascinating character. A bit cold, a bit distant, not always even completely likable in a way that's hard to define, a bit casually cruel to her husband who by anything the movie shows us can't be judged as anything other than a good, solid, and super understanding guy. But then there's that last scene that took my breath away, when we see the resolve not to feel emotions that would be inconvenient to feel give way, and we realize just how much has been roiling underneath the surface of Lee's character all along. It's magnificent and earned its right to leave me a quivering mess.
The movie is also a sensitive look at what it feels like to be an immigrant, torn between two cultures, and not sure whether the nostalgia you feel is what you really want or just the allure of the familiar.
A really great bit of counterprogramming in a summer that seems to be dishing up nothing but Marvel movies.
Grade: A.