A pair of childhood sweethearts reunite after 24 years in the beautifully understated Past Lives, which played this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival after premiering at Sundance and debuts in Prague cinemas from July 27. This is one of the leading contenders for 2023’s Best Picture Academy Award, and deservedly so.

Past Lives really is something special: this striking small-scale feature debut from writer-director Celine Song touches upon something deep and universal, and turns unexpectedly devastating as it reaches its heartfelt climax. Bring some tissues.

In an effervescent lead performance, Greta Lee stars as Nora, a thirty-something immigrant who moved to New York from Seoul at the age of 12, and only briefly looked back. The equally-appealing Teo Yoo is Hae Sung, the childhood friend who Nora reunites with after more than two decades. Life has moved on for both of them, while something unspoken but deeply felt draws them together.

Past Lives‘ wonderful fly-on-the-wall opening scene features the pair being casually observed at a Manhattan bar, their history imagined. The film itself can be viewed as a window into the unknown lives that surround us.

Early scenes cover Nora and Hae Sung’s innocent childhood romance, and most touching, a first date. Knowing that her daughter will soon be embarking on a new life, Nora’s mother arranges a meeting that ends with the 12-year-olds holding hands in the back of a car. But when the pair part ways forever with a simple “bye” later on, something is left unresolved.

Twelve years later, Nora is an aspiring writer and New York university student who looks up Hae Sung on Facebook on a whim, only to find that he has also been searching for her. The pair strike up a newfound friendship over Skype, and maybe something a little more… but the distance between them becomes to much for Greta to handle, and she puts a halt to their communication.

Another twelve years pass, and Nora is married to the kind Arthur (John Magaro), who she met at a writer’s retreat. Hae Sung has also moved on, but he’s separated from his girlfriend, and after 24 years, plans a trip to New York City to finally catch up with his old friend.

Like its lead character, Past Lives is too practical to be drawn into romantic tropes that might easily make their way into the Hollywood version of this story. Nora is a character of agency who is comfortable charting her own course in life, and doesn’t give in to whimsical notions of fate or love. And yet, she’s innately aware of an intangible attraction that threatens her sense of control.

Past Lives couldn’t work if we didn’t buy into that attraction between the two lead characters, which is never explicitly addressed on-screen. But it’s a testament to the restrained performances by Lee and Yoo, and director Song’s subtle and deliberate portrayal of these characters, that we invest so deeply into their relationship.

The titular Past Lives relates to the Korean concept of in-yeon, which Nora explains to Arthur as the strands that bind two people who meet one another throughout all their previous incarnations: the attraction between two lovers is so strong because of everything built up between them in their past lives.