Perfect Drama Gem With 95% Tomatometer Guarantees to Make You Ugly Cry

Summary:

• Last year the world saw the directorial debut that became a new drama gold.
• It follows the two childhood friends whose complicated relationship tries to survive in spite of distance and time.

Sad tear-jerker movies are something we all need in the moments of sorrow and pain to release all our negative emotions crying alongside the characters. They get even more tearful when complicated or even impossible romantic relationships are featured, like in Ryan Gosling ’s The Notebook ( 2004) and Anne Hathaway ’s One Day (2011).

These films obviously inspired last year’s drama that takes romantic struggle to a whole other level. It focuses on the relationship of the two childhood friends, Nora and Hae Sung, who get separated by Nora’s emigration from South Korea.

A decade later, they try to reconcile via Skype calls, however, this attempt fails due to the personalities’ differences that developed during that time. Another decade later, they contact one more time, and this time Hae Sung intends to visit Nora in New York.

You can already guess how many essential issues this movie raises: the themes of emigration, coming of age, long-distance relationship, self-identification and cultural differences are explored here. It also traces the development of relationship throughout the long time, like One Day, following 20 years of the two’s friendship-turned-love.

It’s amazingly curious that the movie carefully pays homage to another outstanding example of the genre, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). During one of the onscreen Skype calls Nora recommends this romantic drama about a failed relationship to Hae Sung, who watches it the next day while eating dinner.

Alongside Paul Mescal ’s 2022 hit Aftersun, this movie is also a movie for a great ugly cry, promising to make you reflect on people in your life. Surprisingly, another fact, which connects these two films is that they both appear to be directorial debuts.

Directed by the newcomer Celine Song and titled Past Lives, the A24 movie feels so painfully real it’d be impossible not to sympathize with the main characters, believably played by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo.

“There will always be "what-ifs". And life is complicated and messy,” fairly concludes Redditor @ina_waka about the movie’s relatability.

Refresh yourself with a good cry and watch Past Lives on your preferable platform, as it’s available for streaming on Netflix , Prime and Apple TV+ .