Review: Spanning continents and decades, 'Past Lives' is a love story for all time
"Past Lives," Celine Song's gorgeously heady and heartfelt love story, opens with its own wry version of a "three characters walk into a bar" joke. At a warmly lit counter somewhere in New York City, a man and a woman, both of Asian descent, appear lost in conversation while a third man, who's white, looks quietly on. We can't hear what they're saying, though we do hear two off-screen people-watchers — obvious, frankly annoying stand-ins for the audience — musing about how these three might be connected. Are the Asians siblings or significant others? Is the white man one-half of an interracial couple, or is he a tour guide?
Having been on the receiving end of similar, variably irritating questions and assumptions myself (why no, I'm not with the Asian dude standing behind me in line, why do you ask), I fell for "Past Lives" pretty much from the jump. You might, too, even if this playful prologue turns out to be
