After serving as a writer on the television series The Wheel of Time (2021), Celine Song delivers a memorable directorial debut – as well as penning her first feature screenplay – with the poignant and elegant Past Lives.

The film tells the tale of two close childhood friends – Nora (Seung-ah Moon) and Hae Sung (Seung-Min Yim) – who are separated when Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Decades later, when the couple are fatefully reunited in New York, a grown Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), are forced to come to terms with their beliefs concerning destiny and the choices that make up an individual’s life.

As a first feature, Past Lives signals the arrival of a unique voice and talent in writer/director Celine Song. There is a transcendent quality within the interplay and dialogue between the characters of the film that makes their story both romantic and simultaneously heartbreaking.