Bittersweet in the best way

This movie surprised me. I thought it was going to be some middle aged woman fantasy about reuniting with a lost childhood friend but it ended up being a pretty good tragedy about two Korean people losing each other slowly.

It’s a rare movie that settles, quietly, into some part of your own experiences and memories without a speck of narrative contrivance gumming up your response to the story on the screen. Past Lives is that rarity.

Michael Phillips

Chicago Tribune

Past Lives, the graceful debut feature from the Korean Canadian playwright Celine Song, stands a world apart from most of today’s slick movie fare.

Peter Rainer

Christian Science Monitor

Diverging from romances in which lovers are expected to move heaven, earth, and themselves in order to make a moment of love last forever, Past Lives asks us to embrace the changes that come with time.

Pat Brown

Slant Magazine