Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Guillermo Del Toro has become one of the most prolific filmmakers of the modern age thanks to his unique voice, resilience on non-CGI creatures, and his unrelenting patience for his craft. Before working behind the camera, Del Toro worked for much of his early career in makeup and special effects, trained and mentored by Dick Smith. Working alongside Smith for ten years, Del Toro eventually cofounded his own visual effects studio named “Necropia”. This early interest and experience with practical effects laid the groundwork for almost all his projects to come, beginning with his first film Omnivore.

As I left the SLC following my third viewing of Past Lives, I heard an overwhelming murmur of phrases which included, “It’s so good!” or “The characters are so real,” and “That was so sad!” all of which are valid assessments. However, while I, too, was repeating many of these phrases, I couldn’t help but feel like the movie was deserving of more than an assessment similar to so many others. In its brisk 106-minute runtime, Past Lives excels in the task of taking the audience into the lives of a mere three characters, giving very little in terms of information on who they are or any in-depth character traits, and bringing us to tears, as we wallow in the idea of lost time.

The recent success of Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster Barbie came as a surprise to no one following the incredible marketing campaign from the main cast, as well as the positive publicity already surrounding Gerwig and the cultural phenomenon that was “Barbenheimer.” In just seventeen days, the film surpassed the $1 billion milestone in the global box office on a budget of $145 million, making Gerwig the first woman to have a primary directing credit on a $1 billion dollar film. Likewise, the success of the previously mentioned “Barbenheimer” campaign resulted in Oppenheimer garnering an overall total gross of over $900 million worldwide. Does this mean that creative cinema has finally made its triumphant return, and the studio mindset of franchise filmmaking will finally become a thing of the past? Not quite.