Past Lives and the power of small scale drama
The new drama Past Lives centers on three ordinary people taking realistic actions, leading to messy outcomes. There are no clean Hollywood endings, heroes, or villains. Characters don’t die. Nobody is saving the world. Writer-director Celine Song challenges audience expectations of Hollywood escapism and genre conventions and, in the process, makes a riveting movie.
Reflecting on the forty-plus films I’ve seen this calendar year, three of my favorites – 2020’s The Nest, 2022’s Saint Omer, and Past Lives – share the same small scale and grounded feel.
Each film has different aims and subject matter. The Nest follows a rich family moving to 80s England for business opportunities. Saint Omer is a French courtroom procedural covering a woman accused of infanticide. Past Lives centers on two childhood friends who split apart, later in life reunited.
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