Quote:
"Celine Song makes a quietly spectacular writing-directing debut with Past Lives, a lyrical slow burn of a film that expertly holds back wellsprings of emotion, until it unleashes a deluge. The premise is deceptively simple: Nora and Hae Sung are childhood sweethearts growing up together in South Korea when her parents move the family to Canada. Twelve years later, when Nora is in her 20s and trying to make it as a writer in New York, the two reconnect online. This could be the start of a meet-cute-take-two worthy of that other Nora, i.e. Ephron. But Song is not interested in rom-com confections here. Following Nora as she follows her dreams, played with self-possession and dry wit by a revelatory Greta Lee, Song tells a new but achingly familiar kind of love story. She also traces the contradictory contours of female ambition as it changes, and too often shrinks, over time."
-- Ann Hornaday

Source:
Hornaday, Ann. "'Past Lives': A lyrical love triangle unleashes a deluge of emotion." Review of Past Lives. Washington Post, June 7, 2023.