The Beauty Of ‘Past Lives’ Is Its Ability to Capture The Immigrant Experience

Among those watching the Oscars on Sunday, there will be immigrants like me who’ll be rooting for “Past Lives,” a quiet film that shows how we mourn the ghost lives that could have been had we stayed in our homeland.

“Past Lives,” nominated for Best Picture and Original Screenplay, resonates deeply with those of us who have left our homelands behind. The film is about Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), two deeply connected childhood friends in South Korea who are separated when one moves away. Two decades later, they’re reunited in New York and have to confront their destiny and the choices they’ve made.

Like Nora, the Korean American main character, I also had a childhood love in my native homeland Iran before leaving and eventually finding my home in America. He was the son of one of my mother’s closest friends ― a gentle boy with a broad smile and sea-blue eyes ― and my only friend growing up. After a quick hello to his parents, we would run up to his room; it was a magical place filled with shelves of colorful Lego creations, model planes, ships and cars. We talked about the world, about our families, about big ideas of freedom and independence.

I was as brash and opinionated as I wanted to be, not afraid of being labeled as too loud, too forward, too unladylike — something I’d been chastised for many times by my relatives. We ran around his expansive garden weaving between the cyprus trees, making each other laugh so hard we would buckle over with tears streaming down our faces. A few years later, my family moved away. I saw him a couple of times after that, but as our parents’ friendship faded, so did our visits.

My relationship with that young boy is inextricably tied to my memories of Iran. He was the only