Run time: 106 mins

Filmmaker Celine Song makes a powerful debut with this gorgeously written and directed drama exploring how relationships shift over time.

At 12, Na Young and Hae Sung are best friends, perhaps even in love. Then Na Young’s family immigrates to Toronto, and it’s 12 years before they reconnect again on Facebook. Now in New York, Na Young has become Nora, while Hae Sung is busy preparing to study Mandarin in China. As she’s pursuing a writing career, Nora suggests taking a break from their intense online relationship. As time passes, she ultimately marries fellow writer Arthur. But when Hae Sung books a flight to New York to see Nora in person after 24 years, the past threatens to disrupt the present.

It’s rare to see a film that can deal with romance and friendship without ever slipping into sentimentality or fiery emotion. Instead, Song continually lifts feelings into the open air, revealing deep affection and heartbreak as purely natural. A story loosely based on her own experiences, she catches the sense of being an outsider with unusual nuance. But perhaps more brilliantly, she highlights the momentous connections and their inspirations between three people in the past, present and perhaps the future as well