Past Lives highlights the possibility of alternate futures, different outcomes. It is a film about time and enduring connections.

Past Lives follows Nora (Greta Lee), who moves from Korea to Toronto as a child and later relocated to New York to pursue a career as a playwright. She has lost touch with her childhood best friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), but reconnects with him 12 years after leaving Korea, only to lose touch again and reconnect another 12 years later.

Now married to Arthur (John Magaro), Nora arranges to meet with Hae Sung on his trip to New York. The two carefully navigate their feelings and New York City while trying to figure out what they want from life and each other.

The film’s name comes from a Korean concept of in-yeon, which means that anyone you meet in this life, you’ve met before. If you’re lucky enough to fall in love, it means that you’ve met that person in 8000 previous lives, all leading up to this trajectory.

Nora and Hae Sung have spent decades searching for love when they could have just as easily turned to each other. They still have feelings for one another, which seems impossible since they haven’t seen each other in decades.

Nora and Hae Sung have a connection that Arthur and Nora will never share, but can they act on that connection – or is it just not that time?

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