Might Have Beens 

[
    
      {
        "name": "Top Stories Video Pair",
        "insertPoint": "7",
        "component": "17087298",
        "parentWrapperClass": "fdn-ads-inline-content-block",
        "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
      }
    
    ]

With the joys and horrors of our most recent, apolitical global cataclysm rapidly diminishing beyond the remembering, we return to some version of normal. Which is to say, many of the smaller, headier but nonetheless celebrated releases of 2023 are just now making their way to screens where country folk like ourselves can access them.

Not coincidentally, this year's Academy Awards nominees have been announced. And even though I care about the ceremony only marginally more than the NFL playoffs, the list itself is a noteworthy cultural document, a tacit invitation to reexamine the year just passed. So this will be the first of at least a couple hindsight editions, in which we'll pretend everybody hasn't already said everything about movies they saw months ago.

PAST LIVES. Much buzzed about (and now affirmed) as one of those little independent dramas that could, writer/director Celine Song's debut had a modest theatrical run last summer. It had been and continues to be received rather rapturously among critics and other nerds, but remains, I suspect, underseen by an audience that has become unaccustomed to such quiet, contemplative offerings.

Twelve-year-old overachiever Na Young (Moon Seung-ah), more than a little taken with her classmate Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min), wants to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Or at least that's a significant part of her personal rationalization of her family's move to Canada from Seoul: They don't give the Nobel to Koreans. And move she does, eventually to New York City where, 12 years later, she has become a playwright and renamed herself Nora (Greta Lee). Skyping with her mom, she half-jokingly looks up Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) on the internet and learns that he has been trying to find her. They re-establish their friendship, talking frequently online until Nora decides the friendship, with its delicious promise of something more, is too great a distraction. Another 12 years pass, Greta has married another writer, Arthur (John Magaro), and Hae Sung finally has the opportunity to visit New York.

Nothing untoward happens, but the hours spent together allow an examination of choices made and missed opportunities, the stuff of adulthood. Nora and Hae Sung don't harbor regrets, exactly, but there will always be the unspoken idea that the possibility of a life lived together was taken away before it was truly offered.

Photographed by Shabier Kirchner (Small Axe, 2020) and edited by Keith Fraase (a number of Terence Malick pictures), Past Lives presents itself with a tactile self-assuredness one might expect from an old hand, rather than a newcomer. But Song obviously feels and sees more deeply than most, as evidenced by the care she takes with her words, her actors and her camera. She presents a story of lifetimes, told in little moments that speak to the unutterable ache of living. Lee is, of course, magnetically appealing, with Magaro a note-perfect participant in a chapter of life he can never fully understand. The real surprise, though, is Yoo, whose yearning and unfulfilled curiosity are brilliantly disguised behind gentility and decorum. This is Nora's story for the telling but Hae Sung tells it from his perspective with every charged sidelong glance. PG.105M. STREAMING.

PASSAGES. Not unlike Past Lives, Ira Sachs' (Frankie, 2019; Love is Strange, 2014) latest is about relationships, the comfort of the familiar set against the allure of the unknown. It is also about adulthood and emotional control, but unlike Song's version, Passages examines its subject through the lens of a would-be libertine, a man whose impulses would appear to be completely beyond him

Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a film director of some apparent distinction, lives in Paris and is married to print-shop owner Martin (Ben Whishaw). At the wrap party for Tomas' latest project, Martin decides to retire early. Tomas, in turn, ends up going home with Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), with whom he ostensibly falls in love. His dalliance precipitates predictable tumult, which, in attempting to rectify, he turns into greater strife for all parties. Agathe, an innocent in love with a would-be rogue in a state of arrested emotional adolescence, becomes a tragic pawn in Tomas' foolish attempts at rekindling with Martin, who cannot quite separate himself from a man he loves, despite his best efforts.

Passages tells the story of the death of relationships, but with a tone that tempers the tragedy with humor and an acknowledgement of the intractability of certain entanglements. And there is a profound sadness in that: Maturity can mean the sacrifice of sacred notions and the letting go of loved ones who will join in the sacrifice. NR. 91M. STREAMING.

John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.

NOW PLAYING

AMERICAN FICTION. A Black novelist (Jeffrey Wright) finds publishing success with a book he's facetiously filled with the racist stereotypes and tropes he despises. R. 117M. MINOR.

ANYONE BUT YOU. Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell try to make their exes jealous in a destination wedding rom-com. R. 103M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM. Jason Momoa dons his trunks for his last dip in the DC franchise. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

THE BEEKEEPER. Apiary actioner starring Jason Statham as a secret agent bent on revenge. R. 105M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

THE BOOK OF CLARENCE. LaKeith Stanfield stars as a man in 33 AD Jerusalem who's inspired to make a messiah of himself. PG13. 136M. BROADWAY.

THE BOY AND THE HERON. Hayao Miyazaki animated adventure about a boy who travels beyond the veil to see his mother. PG13. 125M. BROADWAY (DUB), MINOR.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT. True-story drama about a university crew team headed for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. PG13. 124M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

THE CHOSEN. Season 4, episodes 1-3. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

FALLEN LEAVES. Finnish comedy drama about a stumbling romance hindered by happenstance in Helsinki. With subtitles. NR. 81M. MINOR.

FOUNDER'S DAY. A small-town election and tri-centennial are marred when a killer with a mask, a wig and a gavel goes on a rampage. R. 106M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

GODZILLA MINUS 1. The kaiju origin story goes back to its roots in postwar Japan for intense horror with emotional weight. In Japanese. PG13. 125M. BROADWAY.

I.S.S. War on Earth reaches the International Space Station, pitting astronauts against one another. R. 95M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

MEAN GIRLS (2024). Tina Fey's iconic comedy about girl-on-girl violence gets an update. PG13. 112M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

MIGRATION. Animated duck adventure voiced by Elizabeth Banks, Awkwafina and Keegan-Michael Key. PG. 92M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

NIGHT SWIM. Pool's haunted, kids! PG13. 98M. MILL CREEK.

POOR THINGS. The life and times of a resurrected young woman (Emma Stone). With Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo. R. 141M. MINOR.

TROLLS BAND TOGETHER. Animated musical sequel with a boy band plot and wow, good luck, accompanying parents and guardians. PG. 91M. BROADWAY.

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939). And your little dog, too. G. 102M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

WONKA. Timothée Chalamet brings his bone structure to the candy man's origin story. With Hugh Grant in Oompa-Loompa mode. PG. 112M. BROADWAY, MILL CREEK.

For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.