The past can interrupt the present with maddening ease. An obscure song with a painful personal meaning spills from the radio. A stranger drifts by, a familiar fragrance trailing in his wake. An e-mail arrives, bearing a name that evokes a torrent of conflicting reactions. In two recent films, the catalysts are much more dramatic: In "P.S.," opening Wednesday, a 39-year-old college admissions officer (Laura Linney) gets an application from a student with the same name, same appearance and same artistic style as her dead high school sweetheart. In the current "Birth," a 10-year-old boy approaches a 35-year-old widow (Nicole Kidman) about to remarry, claiming to be her dead husband. Aside from these films' plot similarities and suggestions of the metaphysical, there's a simpler, more familiar theme at work. These films cluster with other recent cinematic outings to explore women's connections to their past, delving into themes of regret, disillusionment and a search for meaning. They're themes women can and do relate to as they're leaving early adulthood. "This is definitely a pattern I'm seeing with female clients in their late 20s to middle 30s," says Jennifer Korona, a counselor at Cranberry-based Gateway Employee Assistance Program for the past six years. "It's becoming more and more frequent, especially during the last two-and-a-half to three years, and especially at a younger age than what you'd usually call a 'mid-life crisis.' ... They're wondering if they haven't made the wrong choices." Her male clients generally aren't voicing these concerns until their mid-40s, she says. Korona, 34, says she sees parallels not only between her clients and such films, but her own experiences as a 30-something. Of the 2002 film "The Good Girl," starring Jennifer Aniston as a woman in her early 30s unhappy with where her life choices have led her, Korona says, "I could definitely relate personally to what she was going through." Circumstances certainly weren't identical, she says, but the feelings of frustration and ambiguity transcend the boundary between the screen and real life. Unlike standard Hollywood romantic fare, where beautiful young lovers either live happily ever after or suffer a tragic and final separation, films such as "Birth," "P.S." and "The Good Girl" leave room for the audience to reflect, interpret and discuss -- or even see parts of their own experience realistically depicted. Last summer's "Before Sunset," the follow-up to 1995's "Before Sunrise," even more pointedly examined themes of regret, as early 30-somethings Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy lament the directions their lives have taken since their original meeting nine years earlier as carefree 20-somethings in Vienna. "An art film doesn't tell you all the answers," says Lisa DiBartolomeo, visiting lecturer in the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh, whose courses include film studies. "The viewer investigates along with the characters." But films such as the quartet mentioned above generally aren't the ones that get big-budget marketing pushes -- even for stars like Kidman. "There's this perception that Americans just aren't smart enough for this kind of film, that they just want to be entertained," says DiBartolomeo, who disagrees with that assessment. "It's just that American audiences haven't been trained toward that kind of film. ... But I think it's changing for the better." Connie White, film festival programmer for the Boston Women's Film Festival and a film booker for independent movie houses across the Northeast, including The Oaks in Oakmont, says that while it's still the norm for predictable romances or action films to dominate, smaller films are taking up real-life women's issues in creative and challenging ways. "You'd be surprised how few movie roles are carried by women, with the exception of stars like Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie," she says. "There are plenty of great supporting roles for women, but not true starring roles. In the independent film world, they're not as concerned with money as they are with trying to tell a good story. And middle age is becoming an interest. The women are portrayed as a little older; they're at a point where they make more interesting people." "Before Sunset" obviously explores Hawke's character along with Delpy's, but with few other exceptions, White says, films examining men's middle-age period generally come in the form of thrillers or capers -- or just about any Michael Douglas film in the late 1980s through the 1990s. Oakmont resident Sarah Landini, 28, is a film fan who gravitates toward art films that explore more true-to-life emotions. "I've started to wonder if I'm an addict," she says. "I love story. ... The thing I'm drawn to is character growth, people making better decisions. I like virtues in films -- seeing people have to make hard choices and deal with whatever they are. But not everyone is going to want to see that story. I can't imagine I would have liked these movies when I was a teenager." Amber Cherry, who will turn 30 in January, took turns with her husband watching their 1 1/2-year-old baby so each could take in the double-feature presented recently at The Oaks of "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset." The films' themes of re-examining the past resonated with the couple, she says, without being a replica of their own experience. "We saw the first one when it came out, and we loved the romance, the philosophy, the conversation," says Cherry, of Oakmont, whose oldest daughter is 11. "The second film was like revisiting old friends." The situation isn't identical, but some of the feelings are, she says. "I don't regret having a baby at 18," she says. "But I do regret how neurotic I was. I really wish I would have slowed down and just enjoyed being, instead of wanting to be." Laura Dice, assistant dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, says the underlying themes of looking back aren't unusual and can work well when life is reflected in film. "This idea is pretty common, " she says. "We're culturally pushed to take these steps: I've got to do this and I've got to do that, and then there's the fallout. Ten years later, you realize, 'I didn't really have to do that.'" And although she enjoys seeing characters play out scenarios that feel very familiar, Landini appreciates the separation as well. "They have the cutting-room floor," she says of the films. "Movies have to be compact, finessed. In real life, you don't have the cutting-room floor."

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