Celine Song Explains the Heartbreaking Final Scene of ‘Past Lives’: ‘Somebody is Grieving a Part of Themselves They Never Got to Grieve’

variety.com:

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor “Past Lives” writer and director Celine Song handles the delicate themes of love and destiny surrounding the Korean Buddhist concept of In-Yun — the connection, fate and destiny of two people.

However, the South Korean/Canadian playwright says she had her own “revelation” while making her directorial debut. “It’s a movie about these revelations about this one woman who over the course of her life,” she tells Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast. “It felt really special to me, because I was also having a revelation of my own: I’m a filmmaker, which I didn’t know until I started making this movie.” On this episode of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, we talk to the writer and director and discuss her experience making the love story “Past Lives.” In addition, we speak with her star, Greta Lee, about how she initially lost the role of Nora and what the film has meant to her acting career.

Listen below: “Past Lives” tells the story of Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sunt (Teo Yoo), two childhood friends who reunite 20 years after Nora’s family immigrated to the U.S.

Now as adults, they wrestle with their unresolved connection and what it means for their destiny. In the final moments of the romantic drama, Nora takes a slow-paced walk back to her apartment, crying and falling into the arms of her husband, Arthur (John Magaro). “What can you do in that situation where somebody is grieving?” Song asks. “Grieving a part of themselves they never got to grieve?