The notion of romantic fate can seem comforting. Everything is written in the stars. Who you are meant to fall in love with. What is meant to be. But fate—or the Korean concept of inyun—can bring people together and also tear them apart. Lovers may be fated, but one can be a Montague and the other a Capulet. Korean storytelling is full of tales with themes of inyun, fates that entwine and unravel through a succession of lifetimes. In one lifetime we might pass each other on the street. In the next we might be enemies. Or marry.

In Celine Song’s gloriously romantic film Past Lives, Na-young, played by Greta Lee, and Hae-sung, played by Teo Yoo, are childhood sweethearts. Na-young and her family emigrate to Canada and for a long time Hae-sung is just a “kid in her head.” After a decade Hae-sung manages to find her, becoming “a face on a laptop,” but their fate is so complicated, it takes another decade before he flies to New York to meet her.

In her film writer/director Song not only explores the notion of a fate that can last lifetimes, but also the idea that one lifetime can contain multiple “lives,” especially if you are a person eager to reinvent yourself.

Na-young has changed a lot since she and Hae-sung parted in what seems like a lifetime ago. Now called Nora, she’s a playwright who lives in New York eagerly pursuing her dream. While she occasionally thinks of her first love, she’s married to Arthur, played by John Magaro, a fellow writer who nurtures her new incarnation. Hae-sung has not been that lucky in love. While Nora’s husband learns Korean, so he can understand what she says in her dreams, Hae-sung continues to dream about Nora.

Hae-sung and Nora may have been born in the same city but their natures were honed by the places they grew up. The electric energy of New York suits Nora and makes her feel free. Her love for the city is obvious as she shows Hae-sung some of her favorite places. Every location in the film visually seduces the viewer—from the firefly nights of a rural writing retreat, from the hilly backstreets of Seoul to the pulsing sidewalks of the Lower East Side. Creating such a visceral sense of place matters since this is a film in which places play an integral role in shaping people.

The cast is exceptional. Lee, who is known for her quirky extroverted roles in the TV series Russian Doll, Sisters and The Morning Show, has created a more guarded character in Nora, confident and comfortable in her environment but determined to protect herself from emotional damage. Magaro, who acted in Orange Is the New Black, The Umbrella Academy and Crisis in Six Scenes, plays a husband who quivers with insecurity at the thought of losing his wife. Teo Yoo is a German-South Korean actor, who appeared in the US film Seoul Searching and recently in the hit k-drama Love To Hate You. In this film he creates an earnest character, unafraid of seeming vulnerable. It’s always obvious how much he cares, how he can’t shake the feeling of inyun in his relationship with Nora.

There’s a stunning scene in the film where Hae-sung and Nora face each other, conveying the world of emotions between them—exploring all the what ifs imaginable—without saying a word. There’s so much chemistry between them, so much inyun. How can they possibly resist?

The real question may be how to resist seeing this film twice. It might be difficult. The A24 film is currently being shown at limited theaters and will go into wider distribution later in June.