Past Lives (2023) – What If Timing Was the Only Thing That Got in the Way
A quiet film that does not demand your tears but earns them. It explores love that lingers, timing that fails, and the silence between what was and what could have been.

A quiet film that does not demand your tears but earns them. It explores love that lingers, timing that fails, and the silence between what was and what could have been.
Taika Waititi writes, directs and co-stars in 'Boy', set in 1984 New Zealand. The film does just what Waititi dreamed of — it gave a great coming-of-age story to Māori people without making a story of the Māori people as an exotic other.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a film that is jarring within the first five minutes. Being at the edge of my seat from the very beginning made me feel both excited and frightened for what was to come, and it did not disappoint. Led strongly by Jennifer Lawrence as Grace, a woman trapped in the “American dream”, this film shows that society tells us what should make us happy. Many critics describe Die My Love as being about post-partem depression, but it is so much more. After moving to a secluded home with her husband Jackson, Grace finds herself in the throes of motherhood. Feeling isolated in her physical environment and her romantic relationship, Grace suffers psychologically. Lawrence brings a sense of rawness and humor to the screen that is often uncomfortable. Robert Pattinson adds to the discomfort as her loving, yet lost husband Jackson, who cares about his wife but does not know how to help her. Lynne Ramsay has presented a film that forces us to look at the realness of life, and what happens when the promise of what should make you whole fails.
It is up to the community to decide if this film is a force for enlightenment or not.
A complex, realistic, and loving mother-daughter relationship is at the heart of this story about Black pageants and the fight for a better future.