Past Lives (2023) — and the Rolling Stones review

What did everyone think about this film? @ScarletLion, have read your great review but still would be interested in further thoughts.

Isn’t it ridiculous that this Rolling Stone review repeatedly confuses the character’s name (Nora) with the actor’s (Greta)?! I thought it was a one-off, but no… incredibly jarring to my language-obsessed mind.

https://www.rollingstone.co.uk/film/...ne-song-32637/

P.S. Yes, the thread should say ‘Rolling Stone’, not ‘Stones’ — appreciate the irony, but also, what can I say, my autocorrect loves the Stones.

I obviously loved it, but I'm fascinated in diaspora, migration and patchwork families that make huge decisions that affect generations for years to come. I've seen criticisms of it being too silly - like as if the writer would really marry the Korean lady but it's part biographical and this sort of thing happens regularly.

Another film I need to watch with similar themes is Siao Yu, from 1995.

I haven’t read that much on it as yet, but will definitely keep an eye out for those kinds of qualms. It’s a strange criticism to my mind — as you said, it does happen all the time, and regardless, I feel like they did have (or thought they did) a genuine relationship, so it wasn’t exactly a sham marriage in order to get a green card. It was just a bit ‘accelerated’, if you like.

WTF does Mick Jagger know about cinema anyway? The stones on that guy!

I liked it. I really didn't like the opening device of the people talking about them in the bar, the director could have trusted the camera to raise the questions in the minds of the audience without that and that set me against it to start with, but it won me over. I felt at times there wasn't quite enough in it for the run time and it seemed stretched a little thin but overall it was good.


It was a quite different, more mature approach to the idea of a love triangle. But at the same time the real love triangle is between Nora, America (or more specifically New York) and Korea. The two men in her life represent the two countries (sometimes almost a little too obviously). There were times when I was doubting what she saw in the husband but that worked well because it created a sense of not knowing what she was feeling or what/who she would choose and it made sense because she isn't a demonstrative or particularly sentimental person - kind of encapsulated in the scene where she ends a conversation with "and I love you, obviously" and it hadn't been at all obvious to the audience - or to him.


I agree that that RS review is odd, using the actress's name in the same sentence as the character names of other characters. I guess nobody proof read it.