Past Lives (2023)

Childhood attachment meets the adult life that happened in its absence. Celine Song gives Nora's visiting childhood friend and her husband room to be people, rather than turning either man into an obstacle to the supposedly correct pairing. Pauses and shifts between Korean and English carry the tension. For anyone tired of destiny being used to cancel responsibility, this is an unusually considerate film about longing, migration and choices that cannot all be lived.