DIRECTOR Celine Song STARRING Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro SCREENPLAY Celine Song DISTRIBUTOR StudioCanal RUNNING TIME 106 mins
Films should be voyeuristic,’ Mike Leigh once opined. ‘What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives?’ Past Lives’ opening gambit makes the audience party to some unbridled people-watching unfolding in a New York bar. These unseen eavesdroppers are fascinated by the three’s-company dynamic of a trio of drinkers: an Asian woman, an Asian man and a white guy. From across the room they try to unpick the structure of the group. Who knows who? Who, if anyone, is the third wheel? Of all the bars in all the towns in all the world, how did they end up walking into this one?
The scene doesn’t outstay its welcome. A title card soon whisks us back to 24 hours earlier. We’ll head back much further still given the narrative structure that encompasses three distinct periods in the protagonists’ lives. While the bulk of the film is set in the present day, those past-time strands layer up immense wells of feelings that threaten to fully overflow when we return to that bar scene, and the complicated, likeable trio of individuals that we’ve come to know.
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Denne historien er fra September 2023-utgaven av Total Film.
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RETURN TO OZ
WICKED Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande defy gravity as the Broadway smash reaches cinemas.
GRIN AND BEAR IT
SMILE 2 Trauma-horror sequel sees the curse latch onto a pop superstar...
BAD ROMANCE
TIMESTALKER Alice Lowe falls in love with the wrong man time and time again...
CLOWNING GORY
TERRIFIER 3 Creator Damien Leone says Art the Clown is coming home for Christmas...
SELF EXPRESSION
LAYLA A non-binary, British-Palestinian drag queen navigates their expression of identity.
GENA ROWLANDS
I like difficult roles,' said Gena Rowlands. No kidding. A stage, TV and film actor whose career spanned more than six decades, Rowlands will be most remembered for the series of coruscating dramas she made with her first husband, actor-turned-director John Cassavetes, between 1968 and 1984.
'NOW NOTHING IS ABOUT LOOKS OR ABOUT BEING A LEADING LADY.AND IT'S VERY LIBERATING' EMILY WATSON
Since breaking hearts in Breaking the Waves, Emily Watson has delivered countless screen masterclasses, from Gosford Park and Punch-Drunk Love to Apple Tree Yard. Now, the English star goes toe-to-toe with Cilllan Murohy in Irish drama Smeal/ Things like hese and fronts 1V prequel Dune: Prophecy. Is it her second coming? It's elementary, my dear Watson...
BLODD PRESSURE
BASED ON STEPHEN KING'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOK AND WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY IT SCRIBE GARY DAUBERMAN, VAMPIRE MOVIE SALEM'S LOT FACED AN UNHOLY FIGHT TO GET TO OUR SCREENS. TOTAL FILM HUNTS DOWN DAUBERMAN AND STARS LEWIS PULLMAN AND MAKENZIE LEIGH TO LEARN ALL THAT WAS AT STAKE...
Lucky Man
He broke out in Beatles jukebox musical Yesterday and has a varied slate of juicy projects on the horizon, including a very different take on a superhero franchise. But, as the everhumble Himesh Patel tells Total Film, he puts a lot of it down to luck...
A BUE ABOVE
WORLD-BUILDER EXTRAORDINAIRE RIDLEY SCOTT IS ALSO THE MASTER OF THE DIRECTOR'S CUT, RESTORING HIS MISHANDLED GEMS INTO MASTERPIECES. WITH THE EXPANSIVE DIRECTOR'S CUT OF NAPOLEON NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM, TOTAL FILM SPEAKS TO THE GREAT SCOTT ABOUT BLOWING UP BONAPARTE HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH EDITING AND WHY BIGGER IS (USUALLY) BETTER.