Teo Yoo and Greta Lee star in Celine Song’s début feature.
Back and forth we go, through time, in Celine Song’s début film, “Past Lives,” and there’s not a DeLorean in sight. After a brief opening scene, in a New York bar, the words “24 years earlier” appear onscreen. For a second, I misread “years” as “hours”—a more manageable flashback—but no, Song really is grabbing us by the hand and asking us to leap before we look.
The first leap takes us to Seoul, where Na Young (Seung-ah Moon), aged twelve, lives with her parents and her sister. She walks home from school with a boy, Hae Sung (Seung-min Yim), who, for once, has got better grades than she has. She could not be more annoyed. He calls her a psycho, as if that were a quality to be admired. The two of them go on a playdate, climbing on chunky sculptures in a park, their faces vanishing and coming back into view—a hint of the transience that will lend the film an air of cheerfully worried fragility.
This story is from the June 12, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 12, 2023 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
