Past Lives will tear your heart in three
If you're heading to the movies this weekend, you're in for troubled times. Plus, Rose Matafeo's Starstruck returns, and the Netflix series that will give you a headache.
It's not how anybody wants to spend their weekend, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Earlier this week, my preferred podcast streaming app Stitcher called it quits, forcing me and its many fans to relocate elsewhere. There are dozens of options to choose from – Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts and Audible seem like the most popular – but I'm going to give Google Podcasts a go. I like the clean layout and the simple access to downloads. So, for the next few days, you’ll find me attempting to re-subscribe to all my favourite shows, organising my episodes and trying to remember which one I’m up to. Change is hard! Wish me luck. I'll see you on the other side.
-Chris Schulz, Rec Room editor
Here’s a love story that will rip your heart a new one
A month has passed since I saw Past Lives. That means it’s been a full four weeks since my life was changed – possibly for good? This film has sat with me, churning away in my stomach, pulling at my heart, rearranging my soul. Moments keep coming back to me, hitting my brain like a shockwave. Past Lives is not an easy watch. It is brutal: it will tease you, taunt you, make you question your own past and the things you’ve chosen to bring with you into the present.
I’m not sure if I’m making any sense, but if you take one thing away it’s this: if you choose to see Past Lives, Celine Song’s debut feature that debuted at the International Film Festival last month and gets a limited run in Aotearoa theatres this weekend, it’s going to stay with you. That much is certain. You do not have a choice in the matter.
Past Lives is a tender, intimate story about two childhood friends told across three decades. We meet them first as school kids, then as twenty-something singles, and again in their 30s. It’s not a film full of big reveals or “gotcha” moments. There is little physical contact between the two. At one point, while catching up over a Skype call using dodgy mid-2000s internet, the glitches mirror their relationship: stuttering, full of pauses, fading in and out, always threatening to disconnect completely.
That lack of touch is what makes the tension so palpable. When they’re together, Nora (played by Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) have as much chemistry as any couple has ever had on screen. It’s in the way they look at each other. Her: playful, cheeky, questioning. Him: intense, deep, like his whole life depends on what she says next. It’s in the smiles, the laughs, they way they flirt around, but never directly at, each other.
This is a film all about the thing that occurs between two people just before a relationship starts. Past Lives is all suspense, always, and thanks to Song’s firm grip on the subject matter, it makes for visceral, scintillating viewing. Song seems to have her finger on the pulse of the human condition. These people know each other intimately, and yet … should they? Could they? Would it ever work? Shouldn’t they try?
Past Lives spends its entire run time building up to an answer. When it finally gets there, it will tear your heart in three. I saw this when it debuted to a packed festival house at The Civic, and I’ve never been part of an audience that felt so on edge, like we were collectively inhaling. By the end, it doesn’t seem like a spoiler to say there was a deathly silence, followed by gasps, sobs and plenty of wet cheeks.
My heart hurts, and it’s taken me weeks to understand why. Yes, Past Lives is a bruising viewing experience. Song’s film asks deep questions about how the past can influence the present and how much history it’s healthy to bring with you. It will make you examine your own past, your choices, and whether you’ve put the correct amount of weight on those decisions. Most of all, it’s a film that asks: can you ever go back?
It’s forced me to spend the past four weeks replaying key scenes over and over in my mind: the way Nora smiles at Hae Sung in a different way to everyone else; the awkward way he stands when he’s about to see her for the first time in a decade; and the gut-wrenching bar conversation that plays out between three people, in two languages, with every single available human emotion on display.
This year’s best viewing has been found in the most unexpected places: the third episode love story in HBO’s grisly zombie apocalypse The Last of Us, the dark underbelly of grief that plays out in Aussie horror Talk To Me, or the jaded eye rolls of Dre in Prime Video’s serial killer show Swarm.
Past Lives scours similar territory, yet it finds a bottomless pit in the simplest story of all: two people who can’t decide if they’re right for each other. Be warned: you won’t emerge unscathed.
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Starstruck is awesome, even if Rose Matefeo feels guilty about it
“I feel a massive sense of guilt for making a romcom,” is how Rose Matefeo recently described Starstruck to The Guardian. It’s a strange thing to say when you’ve made a hit show, yet she needn’t worry: Starstruck cleverly takes those classic romcom structures and meddles with them in a delightful way. Season three takes the “will-they won’t-they?” story between ex-pat Kiwi Jessie and UK movie star Tom and moves things forward two years: they’ve broken up and are dating other people. Yet, their chemistry, that magic, is still there. What should they do about it? You’ll find out when Starstruck debuts on TVNZ1 and TVNZ+ this Saturday night.
Netflix’s Painkiller will give you a headache
The Oxycontin story has been told many times in many ways – podcasts, books and another TV series, Dopesick (on TVNZ+). It’s a bleak yarn in any format and that doesn’t change in Netflix’s version of the story, which adds Matthew Broderick, Taylor Kitsch, corporate TV razzmatazz and a fair bit of Wikipedia recital into the mix. Painkiller follows several strands of the story – the Sackler family who started Purdue Pharma, the young blondes who pushed the drug onto doctors, and the investigators trying to find justice – but the most compelling moments involve users who had their lives devastated by a drug they were told wasn’t addictive. (For more, try Search Engine’s two-part fentanyl podcast special.)
All the new stuff you can watch this weekend
Until Lord of the Rings: The Ring of Power came along, The Wheel of Time was Prime Video’s big budget fantasy bet. It didn’t quite pay off (neither has The Rings of Power) but many say this, with Rosamund Pike and our own Zoë Robins fighting a dark entity, is the better one. It returns for season two today, and The Spinoff’s Sam Brooks says it’s “fun, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it looks seriously great”.
Elsewhere, Rose Matefeo’s Starstruck returns for its third season (TVNZ+, from Saturday) and despite shifting two years forward and breaking up Jessie and Tom, the show’s central couple, it remains a winning comedy that flips romcom clichés. Also on TVNZ+ is Alone: Australia, the great extreme survival show. Speaking of survival, Live to 100 (Netflix) has Dan Buettner travelling around the world to find out why people live extraordinarily long lives.
At the movies this week, Denzel Washington gets ready for more revenge missions in The Equalizer 3 (“A forgettable, gory thriller,” says The Guardian), while Haunted Mansion tries to conjure up some scares (“A grimly efficient IP cash-in,” says The Observer). Your best bet may be one of two smaller-scale movies: Past Lives, Celine Song’s stunning debut about a long distance relationship between two school friends, and Scrapper, a father-daughter story about which the London Evening Standard promises: “You’ll be floored.”
For more try our weekly New to Streaming guide.
Everything you need to know
Hollywood’s dual strikes are entering their “holy-crap-won’t-someone-do-something-for-the-love-of-god” phase. Mathew Belloni spells out just how bad it’s become in the latest episode of his industry podcast The Town. Honestly, just listen to Belloni spell it out in first five minutes. It’s a mess.
Who would go to a Shrek Rave? What happens at a Shrek Rave? Why is this even a thing? Alex Casey finds out.
Stars on Mars takes celebrities to the Australian outback, makes them wear space suits and forces them to build a new civilisation, then films the results. Those celebrities? Lance Armstrong, Ronda Rousey, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Tinashe. How is this bonkers reality show not on streaming services here?!
In news that surprises no one, The Idol is not getting a second season. In news that is surprising, The Weeknd got away with that HBO shocker scot-free and will next be seen here headlining two (TWO!) Eden Park shows. How?
What just happened on Below Deck Down Under? The Real Pod assesses it.
In a move that you can bet is entirely due to Oppenheimer’s success, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is heading into iMax theatres. Yay!
Bottoms, a bad taste high school comedy starring the everywhere-right-now Ayo Edebiri, has become a big out-of-nowhere US hit. There’s no word on when it’s coming to Aotearoa, but console yourself with this great red band trailer.
As the strikes continue to upset the film and TV industry, there are few new trailers to get excited about. So it’s a nice surprise to get a first look at the new David Fincher film The Killer, which looks dark and disturbing and a return to the days of Se7en and Fight Club. This one’s on Netflix from November 10.
That’s it for Rec Room for this week. If you liked what you read, why not share Rec Room with your friends and whānau.
