{"id":167606,"date":"2021-02-01T01:00:30","date_gmt":"2021-01-31T22:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/passing-review-sundance-2021-film\/"},"modified":"2021-02-01T01:00:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-31T22:00:30","slug":"passing-review-sundance-2021-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/passing-review-sundance-2021-film\/","title":{"rendered":"#Passing Review: Sundance 2021 \u2013 \/Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Passing Review: Sundance 2021 \u2013 \/Film<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

\"passing<\/a><\/p>\n

Irene (Tessa Thompson<\/strong>) and Clare (Ruth Negga<\/strong>) meet in the restaurant of a posh New York hotel, spotting each other from across the room. Irene mistakes Clare for a stranger at first, but as it turns out, the women grew up together. But as Irene looks Clare over during this reunion, she can hardly believe her eyes. Clare is sporting platinum blonde hair, and for a moment \u2013 just a moment \u2013 Irene thought she was white. But both women are Black \u2013 although they can hide it. Both are light-skinned enough that they can, if they want to, pass for white. It\u2019s something we see Irene do briefly at the start \u2013 and she doesn\u2019t seem very comfortable doing it, constantly hiding behind her own hat and avoiding eye contact whenever possible. But for Clare, passing has become a way of life. She even has a white husband (Alexander Skarsgard<\/strong>). \u201cDoes he\u2026?\u201d Irene asks, before Clare cuts in: \u201cKnow?\u201d He doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Hall<\/strong>\u2018s\u00a0Passing<\/em><\/strong>, adapted from the 1929 novel by\u00a0Nella Larsen, follows these women across an ever-shifting timeline. It\u2019s not entirely clear\u00a0how<\/em> much time passes, because Hall lets the days all crash into each other, and we only know significant time has passed when characters throw out a line or two signaling something that\u2019s changed. It lends the entire movie a dreamy quality \u2013 as does the gorgeous black-and-white (and sometimes almost monochrome) cinematography from Eduard Grau<\/strong>. When Irene and Clare meet in that hotel restaurant, the scenery around them is stark white \u2013 the walls, the floors, the tablecloths, even Clare and Irene\u2019s clothing take on the color of freshly fallen snow.
\nDealing with race, gender, identity, and sexuality,\u00a0Passing<\/em> is a film about characters unable or unwilling to admit who they are. Clare happ<\/a>ily lives the life of a white woman and even laughs off her husband\u2019s unflinching racism (he calls her the n-word as a term of endearment in one of the movie\u2019s most unbearably tense scenes). And yet she frequently talks about returning to Harlem, where Irene lives, to live among Black people again. Irene, in contrast, says she\u2019s happy being who she is. Sure, she\u00a0can<\/em> pass if she really wants to, but she says she doesn\u2019t want to. On top of that, she says she\u2019s furious with Clare for her continued charade. But whenever Clare comes around, Irene can\u2019t help but look at her longingly. She lusts for Clare, both sexually and with envy. Clare is free and happy in ways Irene can\u2019t imagine, and there are multiple moments where all Irene can do is stare. Stare with both confusion and passion. At one point, the camera \u2013 from Irene\u2019s POV \u2013 rests on Clare\u2019s bare skin when the woman is wearing a backless dress, and Irene is seized with the sudden urge to reach out and touch her friend\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

Irene isn\u2019t alone in her longing. Everyone seems to be smitten with Clare, including Irene\u2019s sons and her husband,\u00a0Brian (Andre Holland<\/strong>), a doctor who wants to leave America and live abroad rather than raise his children in such a racist country. It\u2019s the type of talk Clare doesn\u2019t want to hear, and when Brian attempts to tell their children about a Black man who was lynched, she hushes him, saying the boys don\u2019t need to know about that sort of thing right now.<\/p>\n

Thompson and Negga are transcendent in their respective roles. Negga\u2019s Clare gets to have more fun, and since the film is told entirely through Irene\u2019s POV, Clare remains something of a mystery to us just as she does to Irene \u2013 we don\u2019t\u00a0really\u00a0<\/em>know what\u2019s going on in her head. But Negga gives us hints through silent, weighted glances that seem to say so much without saying anything. Thompson, in contrast, is a bundle of nervous energy. She adopts an almost Mid-Atlantic accent to make the character seem extra-propper while playing Irene as someone so rigid that she might crack. Thompson has continually turned in memorable work but this might be her finest performance to date.<\/p>\n

Passing<\/em> eventually builds towards an ending that feels both inevitable and rushed, and the conclusion \u2013 while emotional and stark \u2013 robs the film of some of its power. It\u2019s almost a shrug, as if the story gave up on itself, and I wanted just a little bit more. But the dreamy images and the simmering passions of the film lingered with me.<\/p>\n

The sorts of themes\u00a0Passing<\/em> is trafficking in\u00a0could easily go wrong on the screen if they were approached in an unsubtle, heavy-handed way. But Hall, who makes her feature directorial debut and also adapted the script, deftly balances it all. There are no big outbursts, no speeches. Everything is just slightly beneath the surface, simmering. We\u00a0know<\/em> it can all boil over at any moment, and that lends the entire movie considerable tension. It\u2019s as if we\u2019re waiting for the other shoe to drop; for something to go horribly,\u00a0irreconcilably wrong.\u00a0Occasionally, Hall gives in to some flourishes that distract from the story she\u2019s telling her, such as several shots where characters deliberately go out-of-focus. And the decision to shoot the movie in 4:3 aspect ratio at times feels like a distraction. For the most part, though, this is a strong debut, proving that Hall is not just a great performer but on the way to becoming a great filmmaker, too.
\n\/Film rating: 8 out of 10\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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“#Passing Review: Sundance 2021 \u2013 \/Film” Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga) meet in the restaurant of a posh New York hotel, spotting each other from across the room. Irene mistakes Clare for a stranger at first, but as it turns out, the women grew up together. But as Irene looks Clare over during…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/passing-review.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1568,1523,1570,7598,91553,91554,91555,29332,91354,19871],"class_list":["post-167606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-featured-stories-sidebar","tag-drama","tag-features","tag-movie-reviews","tag-passing","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-ruth-negga","tag-sundance","tag-sundance-2021","tag-tessa-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}