Sundance: "Passing" review
Thursday, February 4, 2021 at 10:00AM by Jason Adams
I hope that after fifteen years of me writing on the internet you all will have an inkling of what a big deal it is for me to start a film review off with talk of Awards, a subject I normally pay very little attention to. Perhaps it's that this is my first Sundance -- I've heard people get exclamatory brains in these places, although it being virtual this year I don't have the excuse of the mountain's thin oxygen supply. But here's the deal -- if every single person involved with Rebecca Hall's directorial debut Passing isn't nominated for awards next season I'll eat my shoe. Hell I'll eat one of Ruth Negga's shoes, and they look complicated. Buckles and snaps. But seriously. Everybody gets an Oscar. Do they have Oscars for Craft Services? Give them an Oscar. They kept these geniuses fed well enough to make this beautiful, blessed film...
Adapted by Hall from Nella Larsen's 1929 novel -- Hall said she wrote the first draft of this screenplay when she was 25, which mathematically speaking works out to 14-ish years back -- Passing tells the story of Irene "Renny" Redfield (Tessa Thompson) and her childhood friend Clare (Ruth Negga), who randomly bump into each other at an upscale cafe one afternoon in lower Manhattan. Both are light-skinned black women "passing" for white in this space where they'd usually never be welcome -- most of the time Irene lives a black life up in Harlem with her darker-skinned husband (André Holland) and two boys, but Clare has moved away and made a life of pretending to be white.
Clare's own racist bully husband (Alexander Skarsgard, whose beard is the film's one distracting anachronism, as in 1929 this character would be a clean-shaven Arrow Man all the way) has no idea his wife is anything but the liliest of Caucasians, and Clare is high off her own supply. Negga, channeling some Dames of 42nd Street Busby Berkley tap-girl energy, is a ball of fire -- you can see from the start how Renny would get sucked back into her orbit, and at the same time how hot she'll burn.
Thompson for her part in the less showy leading role is all sublimated urges -- there's an entire unspoken narrative nipping at the film's edges about Renny's own lustful feelings for Clare, and when I say nipping what I really mean is, if you're on that wave-length, it's full on open-mouthed wet-tongue devouring. Clare feeds on the attention from everyone all the time, but Renny can only give so much before it all starts getting twisted up -- this is an emotional pipe-bomb in the building, rattling the radiators to full steam.
But hand-in-hand with Eduard Grau's stunning black-and-white cinematography writer-director Hall keeps the passions old-fashioned, all these red-hot-burners buried under the surface. I've already seen some souls say they wanted more from the film, by which I guess they mean they wanted it to go bigger, but I think Hall & Co navigated Passing straight down the exact right desperate void of feeling for this story, which is entirely about negation -- not white, not black, not gay, not straight, eventually not anything, not anything at all. If you can never know who you are or what you want you're bound to fall, and fall hard.
Reader Comments (9)
Glad to hear Negga is getting a good role,since 2016 she's barely been in anything substantial,is she Lead or Supporting.
I love this novel, and truly think it's one of the greatest works from this time period. Glad to see it adapted, though I can only think about how difficult it could be.
I'm really excited to see it since Negga and Thompson are so talented. I also have long loved Rebecca Hall, but had no idea that she, herself, has a mother who is a women of color. I'm curious to here about her process of developing this film, and her own experiences in the UK/Hollywood, as she does press for this.
I wonder if Negga will receive consideration for this so then she can go ahead and make another -ing and we can all have the Gerund Trilogy we deserve.
Manny - I'm done; you win comment of the day.
Agree with you, JoeG. Surprised/not surprised that it took this long to adapt, but I’m glad it’s in the world. Looking forward to seeing it!
Netflix have bought this
let's not forget ms. negga's luminous hamlet.
Jason, I appreciate your unfettered enthusiasm and praise of this film. I'm not sure I loved it quite as much but it was visually stunning, and Negga was really terrific.
J, I love your reviews, man. You're such a good writer. I hope you don't eat anyone's shoes though. That's contraindicated.