At the end of the day, narrative film – just like any art form – is all about creative choices. What is the story about? From what perspective is it told? What do the characters do? In what manner do they do it? I could provide a near-endless list of choices: narrative ones, stylistic ones, technical approaches, and thematic styles. Each one will shift a text in one direction or another, sometimes in big ways and sometimes in small. To be honest, I think it is the small moment-to-moment choices that can separate a mediocre film from a masterpiece.

The point of all of this preamble is simply to note that writer/director Celine Song, whose debut feature Past Lives opens in Australian cinemas next week, makes smart, effective, and enormously creative choices. Past Lives seems achingly delicate and fragile, and so intricately assembled, that the choice of how a character turns their head might shatter it to pieces. Few filmmakers ever reach this level of quality throughout their career. Song has managed it on the first attempt.

The film focuses on Nora (Greta Lee) who, as a child, moves from South Korea to Canada with her family. She leaves behind Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), a boy with whom she shares a sort-of-friendship sort-of-romance. A decade later, and living in New York, Nora decides to look up Hae Sung on social media – only to discover he has already been looking for her.

It is a set-up for any number of romance stories, but what separates Past Lives from other films is the specific fashion in which Nora and Hae Sung’s relationship evolves. Their story is split into three chapters, each separated by 12 years. The third, and easily the most effective, sees Nora seven years into a marriage with Arthur (John Magaro), an American novelist. The interactions between the three characters – Nora and Arthur, Nora and Hae Sung, Hae Sung and Arthur – provide the creative height of the film.

It is very much an ‘actor’s film’, in which its emotional strength comes overwhelmingly from how its characters behave. The pauses and hesitations, and particularly the awkward silences, do more to convey tone and motivation than anything that is said in dialogue. It benefits from having three sensational lead actors. While Greta Lee and Teo Yoo are as good as faultless, it is John Magaro who deserves to be singled out for praise. His role is a near-stereotypical one, in that he is the ‘other man’ who often emerges in these kinds of stories, yet thanks to an accumulation of subtle acting choices he develops into a strikingly realistic and unusually sympathetic version of that character. He is evolved beyond the jealous husband template into a much more engaging form: the jealous husband that does not want to be jealous.

It is clear this film has been very carefully guided through production, as directorial debuts rarely seem this perfectly-formed and sculpted. It is not a surprise to see Christine Vachon listed as one of the producers: her career is littered with similarly outstanding first features by Todd Haynes (Poison), Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol), Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Rose Troche (Go Fish), and others. If one was looking for the most influential figures in American independent cinema, Vachon would have to be near or at the top of that list.

Every year brings along its line of widely-hyped new feature films, praised to excess by critics and tipped for future awards contention. More often than not these films can disappoint in the actual viewing. Past Lives does not disappoint. This is the real deal. If you’ve an interest in five-star contemporary cinema, you miss this at your peril.

Past Lives opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 31 August, and recently screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival.