Gotham Awards 2023: Getting a grip on "Past Lives"
By Nick Taylor
With the Gotham Awards dropping tomorrow, I decided to cap off this little series with a rewatch, one of the year’s most popular independent films that, to my surprise, did not have a full review at The Film Experience . . . . until NOW!! That’s right folks, we’re talking about Celine Song’s Past Lives. Nominated in Best Feature, Breakthrough Director, and Lead Performance for Greta Lee, this sleeper hit has made about as strong of an impact as an early-year release could hope to achieve. I was fully seduced by it reputation in the weeks leading up to its release, and though I was completely besotted with Past Lives on first watch (to the point of showering it with attention across my own halfway-through-the-year ballot), I’ve never quite shaken the concern I succumbed to hype rather than fully engaging with it. This was an ideal opportunity to give the film another shot, and seeing it again helped to further solidify my feelings on this tricky flick . . . .