Looking for a Summer Movie With Depth?

Source: A24/ Used with permission

The summer solstice has arrived, and we are officially knee-deep into summer, which means, if you live in California like me, long days at the beach, dinner in the backyard, planning road trips, and taking in a summer blockbuster movie or two. And If you have kids, the Marvel universe is where you will live.

But there is another movie out now that's worth noting, something that quietly echoes the aches that immigrants like me feel, no matter how long ago we've left our native home, portraying the complex layers of pain and questions that keep unraveling with each gentle tug, no matter how neatly we try to wrap up our American Dream.

In the movie, Past Lives, Na Young and Hae Sung are childhood sweethearts in Korea when Na Young's filmmaker parents decide to uproot their family and move to Canada. Na Young becomes Nora in her new life, moving once again to New York to pursue her aspiration of becoming a playwright. Hae Sung remains in Korea, still living with his parents as he studies in college. Nora's past calls to her when, on a whim, she looks up Hae Sung on social media and finds him, and they begin a sort of long-distance relationship. Then, Nora decides that she needs to commit to her life where she is, and this relationship is getting in the way.

Source: A24/ Used with permission

What If?

For many immigrants, the past remains alive in snapshot images like those shown in Nora's flashbacks—her and Hae Sung at a playground on a "date," their sullen childhood parting in which little is said, and the selection of her new name. Especially for child immigrants for whom the decision to leave is someone else's, the departure is abrupt and unresolved, and the past lives parallel to the present, in which "what if" is a simultaneously haunting and unanswerable question.

Nora and Hae Sung, however, find themselves with the opportunity to answer it. Hae Sung comes to visit, but by this time, Nora is married, to a White American playwright she meets while at a writing residency. Nora and Hae Sung spend days together as she takes him sightseeing at New York's most iconic sites (including the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty). They converse solely in Korean (Hae Sung is the only one who still calls her Na Young). There's an intimacy so exquisitely conveyed in the shared cadences and silences that even the audience feels the intrusion—when Nora's husband breaks into English.

Source: A24/ Used with permission

This is not so much Nora revisiting the past, but the playing out of a future in which she has not left Korea, one of the "what ifs" that immigrants often grapple with.

Shifting Identities

Immigrants live with two ever-shifting identities, depending on the context. This is shown when Nora tries to explain to her husband that she feels more Korean when she's with Hae Sung, but also less. The feeling of simultaneously belonging and not belonging to the culture that you've left can be overwhelmingly bittersweet. Though unspoken, the converse is also true—that she might feel more American, but also less, with her White husband and friends.

Source: A24/ Used with permission

What Is

Ultimately, Nora embodies the process that defines most immigrants. The question of "what if" is—and needs to be—superseded by an acceptance of what is. She tells Hae Sung that the girl he knew is not the one standing in front of him now. She left that version of herself with him decades ago. Though we don't (and she might not) believe this entirely, this process of letting go and finally grieving the loss echoes the delayed grief that many immigrants feel as well. There is no time or space to grieve in the pursuit of the American Dream. Only when the past tugs at an unfinished thread can we follow it back, grieve deeply as Nora does, and go forward.