Can you have grief for something that never was? Can you have nostalgia for a past that never happened? In Celine Song’s nuanced master work ‘Past Lives’ the answer is a yes that starts as a niggling thought and crescendos to a yes that aches deep in the heart. The plot, in a sentence, follows the lives of two Korean childhood sweethearts who 20 years later reconnect after one had immigrated away rekindling a what might have been. On the surface the film could be viewed as a kind of longing romance but it’s so much more layered than your typical romance film. It’s not only about a love that could of happened but also a story of the immigrant experience, leaving behind a life, a nationality, that could have been. A universally relatable premise that allows a lot of space for the audience self reflection. We’ve all had a relationship, career, a choice, a world of might have been. As I watched I thought deeply about my own relationships and how I would react if someone from my past reconnected. Our lives are made of choices but also relationships, fully formed or missed that shape us. Perhaps the dream is always sweeter as a dream untainted by the at times messy mundane reality of life. The film builds slowly with lots of lyrical space for us to wonder and deftly holds its emotional climax to the very end. Not a Hollywood ending but a bittersweet ending signifying a greater complex truth than an easy answer. It’s rare to find a recent romantic film with intense aching longing and rarer still to have one about a relationship that never was. The chemistry between the leads, where words fail but eyes burn, was palpable. I thought of other great romance films David Leans ‘Brief Encounter’, Linklater’s sunset series, and the film ‘Sliding Doors’. ‘Past Lives’ is destined to become one of those films that’s a byword for an emotion that really does have a translation in English. It’s the human condition to live lives full of grief for the things we had but loose. Yet there is also quieter sadness mixed with longing, nostalgia and wonder for the great might have been. ‘Past Lives’ is the best film of 2023 so far. 10/10