The Big Picture
- Greta Lee's subtle performance in Past Lives is one of the year's best.
- Lee's performance was shockingly overlooked at the Academy Awards, which thankfully nominated Past Lives for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
- Past Lives explores modern romance in a unique and naturalistic way, capturing the complications of a modern relationship through the strength of Lee's performance.
You stand on one side of a New York City street and watch as a woman departs from a bittersweet farewell, perhaps with an old friend, a lover, maybe something in between. She silently walks down the block, tears forming as she meets the arms of another man. They slip away into an apartment, and you understand without any context that you have observed one of the most singularly meaningful moments of this woman's personal life. The final minute of Celine Song's Past Lives is a quietly heartbreaking masterpiece of storytelling, resting squarely on the shoulders of Greta Lee.
Lee's near silent performance in this scene conveys a volume of feelings simply in how she walks. This is one of just a few examples of Lee's measured acting that makes Past Lives one of the best movies of 2023. For having one of the best lineups of original and adapted films in years, the Oscars had a lot of room to make bold choices. Many of the nominees are deserving of praise, but as with any year, there are going to be a few films and key people involved who are unfortunately passed over. Greta Lee's work in Past Lives sticks out as the biggest oversight of this year's nominations.
Past Lives
PG-13DramaRomance910Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea. Twenty years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.
- Release Date
- June 23, 2023
- Director
- Celine Song
- Cast
- Greta Lee , John Magaro , Teo Yoo , Moon Seung-ah
- Runtime
- 106 minutes
- Main Genre
- Drama
- Writers
- Celine Song
Greta Lee's 'Past Lives' Performance Is Masterful
Lee portrays Nora, a writer in New York City who reunites with Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), her childhood love from South Korea years after she moved away and eventually married a fellow writer, Arthur (John Magaro). Caught in an unusually sentimental, complicated predicament, Nora must find a resolution with her past love while maintaining her current one. The film, Song's debut feature, is one of the year's best and deals with universal themes of love and identity with a confidently restrained, poetic voice and a quiet knock-out performance from Lee.
While Lee's performance garnered universal acclaim and nominations from other awards groups, including the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, it was stunningly overlooked at the Academy Awards. Stunning in the sense that it is frustrating to watch what is undoubtedly one of the year's best acting performances go unnoticed by what is considered the most prestigious ceremony in the industry. Still, people who keep up with the trends of Academy voters may not be as surprised to see a performance like this overlooked.
This Is What Makes 'Past Lives' Different From Other Love Triangles
"If you leave something behind, you gain something, too."Lee is remarkable in Past Lives, but Academy voters tend to gravitate to more explosive performances. Sometimes it seems the voters may confuse "best acting" with "most acting" on account of their proclivity to be reeled in by the showiest performances. This leads to quiet, reserved acting like Lee's in Past Lives being neglected in many cases, which makes it somewhat surprising that Lily Gladstone's masterful performance in Killers of the Flower Moon was recognized considering how she is similarly quite reserved throughout the majority of the film. (Except for one heartbreaking, soul-crushing moment where she goes big in an incredibly effective way.) There is a special strength to a performance that can communicate so much without being explicit or emphatic. The Academy absolutely got it right with Gladstone, but Lee should be right there beside her this year.
Greta Lee Perfectly Explores Modern Romance in 'Past Lives'
Celine Song taps into a romantic intimacy that evokes the passionate yearning in a Wong Kar-wai film, but presents it in a naturalist way which reflects the Richard Linklater type of American independent film, especially Before Sunrise. Past Lives is a unique vision in how it builds off of the language and style of these 1990s romances but in a distinctly modern way. Past Lives, thanks to Song's filmmaking and the strength of these performances, is decidedly in tune with the complications of a modern romance. The awkwardness of the video chats between Nora and Hae Sung is pitch-perfect, as there is something strangely vulnerable about the act of baring your heart to a person separated by a computer screen. This could be difficult to play straight in a heightened fashion, let alone in a movie that goes out of its way to plant you in the real world. Greta Lee captures the naturalistic dialogue incredibly well. She makes you see Nora as a real person, not a character.
One of the greatest strengths of the performance is how Lee acts through the silence. Every half-formed smile or wandering glance says as much as she can with a page of dialogue, but in a single second. Nora appears to be a happy person, but a subtle weariness is buried within her face as it becomes clear that the situation she has found herself in cannot possibly end in a way that leaves herself, Hae Sung, and Arthur all satisfied. This struggle is almost entirely internal, but Lee wears the lingering thoughts of all of Nora's "what-ifs" and past lives in every sequence.
Returning to that final moment again, Nora's walk away from Hae Sung into Arthur's arms conveys the entire story of a woman leaving behind a "what-if" to return to a reality she has chosen for herself. It is sad, but not tragic because it was always meant to be this way. She remains comfortable in the life she has found for herself in Arthur. Greta Lee conveys this all from a wide shot across the street, her face barely visible. Only the sounds of her footsteps (and, eventually, tears) in a walk that feels like it lasts for an eternity because of the emotional journey Nora takes during this heart-breaking minute. From that sequence alone, she is worthy of a shower of awards. Every preceding minute of Past Lives only further cemented that Lee crafted a performance so precise, so compelling that it will strike anyone with a beating heart as nothing short of monumental.
Past Lives is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
