The Trailer of ‘Past Lives’ Is Profoundly Moving

“What a good story this is. Childhood sweethearts who reconnect 20 years later and realize they were meant for each other. In the story, I would be the evil white American husband standing in the way of destiny,” says Arthur (John Magaro) to his wife Nora (Greta Lee), alluding to her and her childhood buddy Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) in this stirring trailer for Celine Song’s feature directorial debut, Past Lives. The movie had its international premiere on January 21st at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, screened on February 19th at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival and will hit theaters soon.

Once her family leaves Seoul, South Korea, Nora and Hae Sung are torn apart. Two decades later, they reconvene in New York for one crucial week as they encounter ideas about fate, love, and life’s choices. The trailer intricately captures the lingering effects of unspoken, uncommunicated emotions. Tae Yoo’s nonverbal clues when he finally sees Nora convey the part of himself that he had long since laid to rest, and his brilliant expression of the sense of squandered chances and the rekindled feelings for his longtime friend certainly rings true.

“Would I still have looked for you if you had never left Seoul?” he asks Nora, adding, “Would we have dated? Broken up? Gotten married? Would we have had kids together?” I feel these are questions comparable to Claire’s (Vanessa Redgrave’s) opening line of her letter to Sofie (Amanda Seyfried) in the film Letters to Juliet: “‘What’ and ‘if’ are two words as non-threatening as words can be, but put them side by side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: ‘What if?'” an unsettling dichotomy in contemplating the likelihood of what could have happened, something that is discernible in Past Lives as well. We sometimes tend to miss the fact that decisions impact lives. How we recognize things and act in our past lives defines our present and future. I understand when Nora tells Arthur that Hae Sung, back in school, was just this kid in her head for such a long time and that she has missed him. This happens often, right? We do not, however, recognize that best friends can also be best life partners. When we realize it, it’s already too late.

The trailer paints an evocative picture of the aforementioned circumstances, the past and the present, time and space, and life’s transitions, all accomplished through the actors’ powerful performances. Teo Yoo works perfectly alongside Greta Lee. John Magaro is the ideal husband. Even with a marriage that may be perilously close to dissolution, he is devoted and encouraging. Another striking element of the trailer is that, with the lead characters addressing encounters between people as the result of destiny, director Celine Song employs the Korean theory of ‘Inyeon’ (providence or fate in English) in this poignant narrative, as outlined by Nora before the video closes: “If two strangers walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush, that means there have been eight thousand layers of inyeon between them.” I’m intrigued to see how this notion impacts the protagonists. I can’t wait to see the film.