Past Lives (2023)

An american A24 very adult romance and drama movie that gets in you little by little, slow burning with a gentle flame and involves more than just love, but personal choices and fate too.
Compared to a lot of romances this one is very real, and tells the story of two korean child, that lives closely together in their 12yo in sort of a "proto-date" till she emigrate to Canada and then US, already searching better changes at what she planned to do as a job (writing).
Jump 12 years later accidentally she discovers that he was looking for her, and they start to chat online together, and the old fire starts to ignite again... till the day she says with a broken heart that because neither of them can see each other too soon and because she need to focus on her work they should to stop talking for a while.
A while that passes in another 12 years and she gets on her life in America even marrying another writer aspirant while he gets a girlfriend. Then he decides to come visit her in NYC (that's shown in the very start (2min) of the movie, watch closely for the details in expressions that this tells so much) .
A great strat for Celine Song at her debut on the big screen (as director and screenplay) and great performance of Greta Lee.
An 9.5 out of 10.0 / A+ for me - most real than 80% of the ommances that you see around. Got a nomination for Academy on original screenplay and best Movie but should get more categories imo.

As the son of parents who were childhood sweethearts/soul mates, I tend to be a sucker for movie romances that address this subject. In this case, however, the only “sucker” aspect applies to the money I plunked down to watch this two-hour snoozefest. Writer-director Celine Song’s debut feature has been praised as a masterful piece of filmmaking and one of the best pictures of 2023, but I heartily beg to disagree. When a pair of young, tightly knit Korean friends, Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), part ways from their native Seoul and are later reunited in New York after a 24-year separation, the reunion of these childhood pals provides them with an opportunity to reflect on what might have been. However, their time together consists mostly of a series of overly bloated pregnant pauses, inane dialogue and missed chances to discuss much of anything meaningful, the kinds of scenes that make even the most patient viewers want to yell “Get on with it already!” These “conversations” come nowhere close to matching their joy of their spirited youthful interactions or the heartfelt, substantive talks that later take place between Nora and her husband, Arthur (John Magaro). The result is, quite frankly, a big fat bore that’s trying to be more than it is but never achieves that outcome. Perhaps the biggest problem with this is the film’s truly sincere but decidedly paper thin narrative that doesn’t have the writing support to bring it all into beautiful full bloom, despite some fine performances, exquisite cinematography and an emotive background score. From this, the director would appear to have a hefty reserve of potential stashed away, at least based on this offering’s stylistic elements, but the substance could use some definite shoring up. Let’s hope her next effort lives up to that.