Past Lives has sparked wide admiration and praise—an auspicious start to film year 2023, welcomed with warmth by critics around the world after its world premiere at Sundance in January. The buzz around the film has remained strong, with anticipation building rather than fading as audiences and industry watchers await more from director Celine Song and her debut feature.
As awards season approaches, many analysts and Oscar observers eye Past Lives for potential recognition in major categories. Reflecting on the reception, Song herself notes that any publicity encouraging more people to see the movie feels deeply rewarding. She adds that the growing audience connection also helps her feel less alone and more linked to a global community of viewers.
The film’s narrative is largely drawn from personal experience. It follows a writer who was born in Korea and now lives in New York, reflecting on a long-ago, platonic bond from Seoul as memories resurface across time and distance. Years later, a visit to Manhattan rekindles complex emotions about the choices he has made, including his relationship with a compassionate husband who stands by him.
Past Lives: What the film is and what it isn’t
The result is often described as a condensed revisitation of the vibe found in Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, or as a modern echo of the classic Brief Encounter, but stretched across a span of twenty-five years. It is not a conventional debut from a writer who has primarily worked on dramaturgy for the stage. Song explains that cinema was chosen to tell this story because the scope and the passage of time across two continents required a larger canvas. The film seeks to accurately convey how time reshapes people and how Seoul and New York frame those changes.
The project’s original working title was Ha Young. It was changed after Song moved to Ontario with family at age twelve, well before pursuing studies in writing in Manhattan years later. In a pivotal moment that appears to mirror the film’s premise, Song describes a memory of being in a bar in the East Village, listening to a conversation between two important people from her past, and suddenly feeling a surge of clarity and connection that felt almost magical. It was as if different times and places could intertwine through a single moment of perception.
What unfolds in the film is more than a romance or a tale of heartbreak. It probes how Time can transform people while harboring a core core of identity that persists. Song reflects on the idea that the girl she once was still lives inside her, a thread that connects every stage of life and every choice made along the way.
The film explores a concept familiar to Korean thought known as Inyeon. It suggests that every encounter—whether brief or long, casual or intimate—may be influenced by past experiences and existences. The narrative entertains the possibility that future meetings could occur, and that moments of recognition might enable a bridge across space and time, an idea Song describes as almost magical.
If Past Lives secures a strong entry during the upcoming film awards season, it is likely to draw comparisons with last year’s Best Picture winner as audiences and critics weigh two different kinds of storytelling. One is a quiet romantic drama; the other is a genre-blending, multiverse-spanning spectacle. Yet both works share a focus on the experiences and identities of Asian women living across two cultures in the United States, inviting viewers to reflect on the paths that life takes and those it leaves unexplored.
Song looks back with honesty at the choices that led her to filmmaking, noting that leaving Seoul for Canada and later moving to New York shaped her creative journey. She speaks of falling in love with cinema and remaining committed to it, regardless of circumstances, a testament to the vocation she has chosen.