“ Passing ” is a fascinating exploration of identity: film review

It takes a while to Who passed reveal themselves. At first, the screen is just a white blur and it is only gradually that shapes and sounds begin to emerge: shoes, voices, a street. Finally, we can place ourselves in 1920s New York and identify Irene (Tessa Thompson) as our protagonist.

But the disorientation of those first moments never quite fades. Though based on a 1929 short story by Nella Larsen, and shot in the sleek black-and-white and square 4: 3 aspect ratio of the classic Hollywood, Who passed feels completely modern in its exploration of the blurred lines demarcating race, class, gender and sexuality. Its old-fashioned aesthetic becomes another way of emphasizing that while things have since changed, they haven’t changed as much as we would like to believe.

Irene is a Métis woman who has fair enough skin to pass for white. It’s an option she rarely exercises, she lives in Harlem with her unmistakably black husband and sons, but that’s precisely what she does the first time we see her. She stops at a store frequented by white shoppers, then grabs a cab to a chic white-only hotel to escape the sticky summer heat. There, she meets a childhood friend, Claire (Ruth Negga), who now passes for full-time white people. Even Claire’s husband (Alexander Skarsgard), who casually drops a racist nickname to tease her about his darkened skin, has no idea.

The fortuitous meeting of the women rekindles their long-dormant friendship reluctantly at first on Irene’s part, and perhaps too eagerly on Claire’s. Dazzling Claire is moved by a “wild desire” to reconnect with her black roots and the black community, and she begins to visit Irene and integrate into her social circles despite Irene’s frequent reminders that Claire is in danger of blowing away. its own cover. But Irene doesn’t push back so hard as she in turn is seduced by Claire, revealing nuances of jealousy and sexual desire to accompany this friendship.

So many Who passed takes place in the words that are not spoken.

Not that Irene would ever come out and admit it. Thompson has a difficult role to play as Irene, a woman in a state of even (mostly) denial of herself. But her body reveals what her mind and mouth refuse to let her articulate. We see something revealing in the way Irene’s gaze slides over Claire’s leg across a room, or her hand grip on a teapot as she walks over to Claire, or the echo of Claire’s laughter in her memories. So many Who passed takes place in the words that are not spoken.

This includes conversations Irene and her husband Brian (Andr Holland) avoid about sex, satisfaction, or their family’s future. It is also in Irene’s stubborn refusal to tell her young sons about the harsh realities of being black in America. Even Claire, who is much more expressive (and whom Negga plays with such an irresistible charisma that we are inclined to fall half in love with her ourselves) rarely says directly what she means.

She will vent her emotions, but will often talk about the reasons. And even a discussion between Irene and Hugh (Bill Camp), a white author, about the exoticization of black American culture by white Americans, feels constrained by both Irene’s need to be polite and decent and by Hugh’s disinterest in hearing anything other than what he wants. hear.

Who passedThe aesthetic choices of the company add to the feeling that something is being held back. Where so many period plays strive to accommodate more modern sensibilities, first writer-director Rebecca Hall (who has said in interviews that she was moved by Larsen’s book in part because ‘she herself was the granddaughter of a black man who almost certainly passed for white) chose a deliberately dated look that makes the very concept of color moot, to tell a story about colorism. Grayscale transforms a vibrant era into one defined by absence and restraint.

These choices can put the film and its characters a bit of a distance. Especially during an intermediate stretch when Claire, the film’s brightest personality, disappears for a spell, Who passed may feel too detached from the powerful emotions that drive the story from below the surface. But they also lend the film a discomfort that only seems fitting for a story about two women who have realized that the boundaries that society has painted around them are more porous and less predictable than they claim.

Despite all this ambiguity, what seems obvious is that the unspoken tensions between Claire and Irene will somehow have to come to a head and when they do, the conclusion is both shocking and deserved. The characters of Who passed may feel uncomfortable expressing the changing identities, desires and expectations they experience. But Who passed himself is a conversation starter, with a lot to say.

Who passed premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. No release date has been announced.