“Passing” follows the unexpected reunion of two high school friends, whose renewed acquaintance ignites a mutual obsession that threatens both of their carefully constructed realities.
In her directorial debut, Rebecca Hall adapts Nella Larsen’s progressive 1929 novel. She films in a tight 4:3 aspect ratio with lavish black and white cinematography resulting in one of the most gorgeous films this year. It feels like an old Hollywood picture from the ’40s or ’50s but like Larsen’s writing, there’s a modern flair to its social and racial deconstruction.
The jazz score by prolific musician Devonte Hynes sounds refined and moving. I’ve seen Hynes perform a few times and he’s exceptionally talented. His music celebrates black culture poetically so it’s appropriate to hear him scoring this feature.
Living in the Prohibition days, Irene (Tessa Thompson) impeccably dressed, walks out into the bright Harlem summer day, and catches a cab downtown. Her destination is the Dramont Hotel, a whites-only establishment. While sitting in the stuffy posh room, sipping her tea, she locks eyes with a beautiful blonde woman.
The blonde happens to be her long lost friend Claire (Ruth Negga). Since both women are light-skinned in a white-ruled world, they struggle with their identities. Claire invites her back to her suite and is thankful that her children are white-presenting. An offended Irene retorts she’s glad her boys are clearly black. Claire suggests Irene should shed her blackness and pass as white.
Claire’s husband John (Alexander Skarsgård), tall and bearded with goofy malice in his eye, walks into the room and ruins the intimacy. He disgustingly calls his wife (who he thinks is white) “Nig,” yelling she’s “becoming darker every day.” Astonished by the couple’s behavior, she feigns amusement.
Irene lives in an opulent Brownstone with her handsome doctor husband Brian (Andre Holland). Despite her best efforts, their boys’ innocence deteriorates with the experience of being black in America. Brian encourages educating the kids on the reality of racism by reading news articles detailing lynchings and other barbaric treatments of people in the South.
One of the best scenes (among many) involves Irene conversing with the dapper Hugh (Bill Camp) at a Jazz Club. He’s a white tourist enamored by the Harlem Renaissance, and the club since it’s one of the only reliable places for liquor in the dry climate. He’s baffled to learn that both Irene and Claire are black but his prejudice is more colonial rather than vitriolic.
At the film’s premiere Post-Q&A, Rebecca Hall said she was visually inspired by classics like “The Night of the Hunter.” Reflecting on Hall’s subtle camerawork, I can see a comparable German expressionist aesthetic. It’s clear she spent years crafting this vision and as I just had read the book, she does it justice.
In Select Theaters Friday, October 29th, and streaming on Netflix November 10th
