Past Lives (2023): A Psychological Analysis of Love, Memory, and Choice

Warning: Contains spoilers. Celine Song's Past Lives is a quiet story about Nora, Hye Sung and Arthur, with no convenient villain. There is a first love, a migration, a marriage, twenty-four years apart, and a painful encounter with the life that could have been. The film invites us to look beyond the love triangle: how a person mourns an unlived version of himself without destroying what has become his reality.

The 2023 film was written and directed by Celine Son; starring Greta Lee, Theo Yu and John Magaro. According to the official A24 synopsis, two close childhood friends are separated after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea, only to meet two decades later in New York and face the questions of fate, love and the choices that life is made of. Below, we analyze the dramaturgy and behavior of fictional characters, without giving them distant diagnoses.

In the film, the Korean concept of yin-yong sounds: the meeting of two people can be imagined as the result of many previous contacts in past lives. The tape does not turn it into proof of mystical certainty. Ying-yeon works as a poetic language with which the characters try to give form to what is simultaneously chance, history, and choice.

It is easy to romanticize such an image: if the connection seems fateful, it is tempting to think of it as a demand to act. However, the film divides significance and duty. A person can forever remain a part of our internal history, even though a shared future with them will not be an ethical or viable solution.

Hye Sung comes to New York to see the real Nora, but along with her meets Na Yeon, the girl she was in Seoul. In his feeling there is tenderness, memory and projection. He knows grown-up Nora in fragments: through the screen, a few conversations and a week by his side. The space between the facts is filled with the imagination of what they could have become for each other.

That doesn't make his feelings invalid. Projection is a normal part of falling in love: we see the person and at the same time our own hope, loss, or undeveloped part of ourselves. Psychological maturity begins with the question of what exactly belongs to the partner, and what we brought to the relationship from our own biography.

Emigration changes not only the address. It can sever the ties between languages, names, bodily habits, and visions of the future. Nora builds a life in English, becomes a dramatist, marries Arthur. In conversations with Hye-sung, the Korean part of her experience that a man cannot know from the inside comes to life.

Therefore, the meeting with Hye Sung can be read as a meeting with the delayed self. The longing is aimed at a specific person and at the same time at childhood, Seoul, the name Na Yeon, a different pace of life. When multiple losses merge into one, a loved one from the past can seem like the only door back. In fact, a return to one's history is also possible through language, memory, creativity and new forms of belonging.

Arthur understands the drama of the situation: a Korean childhood friend is crossing the ocean to see his wife. He talks about his anxiety and admits that he does not have access to a part of her inner world. His vulnerability does not become a command, an interrogation, or a prohibition.

This shows adult intimacy: the partner does not have to be the only witness of all versions of our life. At the same time, his fear deserves a place in the conversation. Nora does not hide the meeting and does not force Arthur to pretend indifference. Their marriage endures the presence of a complex feeling, because the characters maintain contact with reality and boundaries.

A typical romantic story often asks the viewer to choose the "right" man. "Past Lives" refuse this competition. Hye Sung is not pure fate, Arthur is not an obstacle, and Nora is not a prize. Each of the three has its own truth and limitations.

Such a decision brings the film closer to real experience: sometimes the conflict arises not because of someone's cruelty, but because of the incompatibility of time, place and already made choices. Pain does not always indicate an error. It can be the price of the fact that a person sees several valuable opportunities and is able to live only one.

Psychology describes the tendency to imagine alternative versions of events: what would have happened if the family had not emigrated, if the video calls had not stopped, if Hye Sung had arrived earlier. Such counterfactual thinking helps to make sense of choices, but can support an idealized story that reality has never tested with life, conflict, and responsibility.

An unlived life has a special advantage: there are no bills, fatigue, compromises and the morning silence after an argument. That is why it can seem cleaner than now. A useful question is not "what path would be ideal?", but "what values ​​from that possible life beg for a place in my current one?"

After Hye Seong leaves, Nora takes a long walk back to the house and then cries in Arthur's arms. These tears can be read more broadly for the loss of the husband with whom she did not stay. She mourns her childhood, her language, her country, Na Yeon, and the future that remains a possibility. Arthur does not demand an immediate explanation or cessation of this sum; he meets her where she has returned.

The finale shows an important ability: to grieve for the unlived and to remain in the chosen life. Acceptance does not erase love and doubt. It allows these feelings to exist without automatically turning into decisions.

The topic of projections and mature intimacy is discussed in more detail in the article "Romantic love without the myth of the second half". You can use "Diary of the mistress of her borders" for written work with boundaries, responsibility and own decisions. It helps to notice where our need ends and another person's freedom begins.

If figurative language is closer to you, the Kazkoterapiia workshop can become a space for exploring alternative stories: what role do I live, who am I waiting for, what future do I give up and what do I want to take from it into the present. MriyaRun products support self-reflection and are not a substitute for psychotherapy, medical care, or crisis support.

Dmytro Telushko, psychotherapist and founder of MriyaRun. For me, "Past Lives" is a film about the ability to recognize the value of connection without appropriating a person. Nora doesn't have to prove that her past was a mistake in order to stay in the present. Hye Sung may be an important part of her story, Arthur a living intimacy today, and tears a way to reclaim both truths.