‘Past Lives’ is being called the love story of the year with an ending that will ‘devastate’ audiences. One writer begs to differ

This story contains spoilers for “Past Lives.”

What makes a good on-screen love story?

Rom-com loyalists prize technicolour happy endings while emo cinephiles prefer their tales laced with spoonfuls of tragedy. But the most potent sub-genre of all are movies about the one who got away. Promising total emotional annihilation, these films are near-mythical in their scope: stories of soulmates set on divergent paths by indifferent destiny. They’re the ones to avoid watching a week before your wedding.

By most accounts, “Past Lives” the critically adored, Golden Globe-nominated debut feature from Korean-Canadian filmmaker Celine Song, falls — in a heap of romantic despair — into this category.

In the movie, Nora (the great Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) are childhood best friends in Korea, who are separated when Nora’s family emigrates to Toronto. Years later, they reconnect as adults. Nora, now married to Arthur (John Magaro), is a playwright in New York. Hae Sung visits her, stirring up feelings from the past and questions about fate.

Critics have been near unanimous in praising the emotional impact of the film. “A glowing, gorgeous, aching thing” gushed the New York Times. Rolling Stone declared it “one of the most devastating one-two punches to ever grace a tragedy.” (Drinking game: a shot for every time “devastating” shows up in a “Past Lives” review.) The much-discussed final scene is both “heart-wrenching” (Newsweek) and “heartbreaking” (Vanity Fair).

After reading those reviews, anyone with a ghost thumping away in the floorboard of their heart might hesitate to watch a film with such “deep wells of emotion” (Variety) for fear that it may dredge up, well … the past.

Except that it almost certainly won’t.

When I talked to non-critics (i.e. regular moviegoers) about the movie, the consensus was clear: Everyone agreed that “Past Lives” was beautifully shot and acted, but no one — including those with a Catherine or Heathcliff hidden in their closet — felt like burning down the rainforest after watching it.

The reason is simple: to achieve true devastation, you need to believe that the two people orbiting each other have a gravitational pull so immense that it blocks out everything else. The couple not being together must feel somehow against nature. Nora and Hae Sung, for all their stolen glances and finger-grazing, never achieve this. Their scenes together float above the fray; they never feel anchored to pure, shattering need.

For those who seek annihilation as part of their movie-going experience, there are several romantic films that will knock you flat.

Take “All the Real Girls,” the 2003 film that takes a page from Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” and stars Zooey Deschanel as Noel and Paul Schneider as Paul. Within the film’s first three minutes, Paul confesses why he hasn’t acted on his feelings for Noel, his best friend’s younger sister: “I don’t want it to be like when I’ve kissed other girls.” Of course, he does kiss her, and everything is perfect until it’s really, really not.

Contrast the now-famous bar scene in “Past Lives” — when Nora and Hae Sung slip into a private conversation in Korean, literally turning their backs on Arthur sitting beside them — with the third-act bar scene in “All the Real Girls” (you just have to watch it). There’s no comparison to the emotional weight: only one hits like a crowbar to the back of the knees.

Deschanel is also the object of affection in “500 Days of Summer” (2009), a romantic drama dressed like a rom-com — don’t underestimate its potential to wreak havoc just because it features a Hall and Oates dance sequence. Deschanel plays the titular Summer, dream girl of earnest Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who wins her, then loses her for the most everyday reason: he’s not the one.

Any number of scenes will make the audience squirm, but perhaps the most stomach-twisting is the split-screen sequence of Tom attending a party with his “expectations” on one side (he reunites with Summer on a starlit rooftop) vs. the reality (on that starlit rooftop, he finds out that Summer is engaged). When, at the end of the movie, a new woman, Autumn, enters his life, the audience can’t muster much enthusiasm. Sure, he’ll date Autumn; maybe he’ll marry her and convince himself that he’s better off, but he’ll never love with such intensity again. For Tom, Summer is endless.

Sometimes, annihilation is encapsulated in lines that you’ll think about forever.

There are many such lines in “Before Sunset” (2004), the second movie in Richard Linklater’s love story trilogy, which stars Ethan Hawke as Jesse and Julie Delpy as Celine. In the movie (the best of the wonderful series), Jesse, now a successful author, is in Paris — where Celine lives — as part of his book tour. The couple reconnect and walk and talk through the city, gradually sharing more and more of themselves. The most (yes) devastating line occurs when Jesse tells Celine that his marriage is “like running a small daycare with someone I used to date.” (Oof.)

Still, it’s the film’s final scene that pulls together all the emotional threads, then tears them apart. In Celine’s apartment, the duo listen to Nina Simone as Jesse prepares to catch a flight back to his wife and child. The tension builds, unbearably. “Baby, you’re going to miss that plane,” Celine says. “Yes, you are,” the audience replies, hopefully.

That’s the crux of what makes the film so impactful. Sometimes, the purity — the undeniability — of love is worth the wreckage its pursuit creates. In real life, this selfishness is harder to defend, but onscreen, we allow ourselves to root for it. We want Jesse and Celine to end up together because we know that without each other, they are sand floating in water.

In the final scene of “Past Lives,” Nora says goodbye to Hae Sung, who gets into a taxi that speeds off into the night. She then flings herself, sobbing, into Arthur’s waiting arms. It’s a lovely ending, but to me, it’s not a devastating one. (Was anyone really rooting for Nora to jump into the cab?) “Past Lives” is a true achievement: it’s absorbing, emotionally intelligent and the acting is excellent. But to anyone who has ever wondered “what if?” it falls short. There is emotion, yes, but there is no excavation.