Passing

Rebecca Hall triumphs in her new role as writer-director with a story of two black female friends who pass as white in 1920s' New York.

Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson

I have long admired Rebecca Hall as an actress but I had not foreseen that the day would come when I would also be proclaiming her talent as a film director and as a writer for the screen. Yet this, happily, is the situation in which I now find myself as I applaud her feature film Passing which, adapted from a novel of 1929 by Nella Larsen, marks her debut in both these new capacities. It is all the more welcome for being a film that swims against the tide by ignoring most of the elements that dominate cinema today: this is a quietly subtle work shot in black and white using the old 4:3 ratio and aimed at the kind of thoughtful audience who earlier this year appreciated Florian Zeller’s The Father. It also has a highly individual character that is all its own.

Passing is set in New York City which is where twelve years on two women who had been friends in the past meet again. This occurs in a Manhattan hotel where Clare (Ruth Negga) is staying with her wealthy husband, John (Alexander Skarsgård). It is Clare who recognises Irene (Tessa Thompson) who lives more modestly in Harlem although she does have a maid/housekeeper. However, the major difference between them is not financial: both women are people of colour but Irene, who has two young children, is married to a doctor, Brian (André Holland) who is himself black, while Clare has chosen to pass for white. Indeed, John had married her believing that she was white and, being racist, he would be horrified should he discover his wife’s origins.

Hall retains the period setting of the original novel but even so Passing is not without relevance today. At one point John, considering what he has seen of New York, describes it as “the city of the future” and the racial issues that are part and parcel of the fabric of the film remind us of our own world. Despite that, Passing is less an issue drama than a tale about individuals and how their lives are shaped in ways that are beyond their control and intention. There are well-drawn subsidiary characters to be found here, adroitly cast and played. That applies to the roles of the two contrasted husbands and to the portrayal of a white writer who enjoys observing life in Harlem (that’s Hugh Wentworth played by Bill Camp). Nevertheless, quite aptly given that this is a film created by an actress, the prime focus is on the two women at the heart of the story and both Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga are outstanding.

Picking wisely, Rebecca Hall has chosen Eduard Grau as photographer and Sabine Hoffman as editor and both contribute greatly to the film’s effectiveness. There are some, I believe, who are put off by the look of the film because it is neither in colour nor in wide screen, but Hall’s decisions here are again thoroughly appropriate. Not only do the black and white images fit the late twenties era but the ratio is well suited to a work that is strongly intimate in character. Hall’s screenplay, rich in words and acute in looks that can be said to speak, establishes the bond between the two women in all its complexity and does so compellingly. Indeed, the dialogue has a weight that makes it easy to imagine Passing as a stage play (it is perhaps not altogether chance that the film of which I was reminded, The Father, was a theatre piece originally). But, if the words could easily have made this film feel too talky, the use of the old enclosed ratio enables Hall to make this a film of wonderfully expressive faces and thus truly cinematic. Without any excess of really close close-ups, the screen size draws us in as intent observers in a way that only cinema can achieve.

The first half of Passing is a total success and it matters not at all if some of the scenes suggest an elaboration of something that could have worked in the theatre (the music score, generally discreet, contributes to the atmosphere yet on occasion a rippling piano theme feels akin to music for scene changes in the theatre). The second half is a bit piecemeal by comparison containing as it does a series of shorter episodes spread over a period of time. There are also moments that might benefit from more detailed explanation. But, if a few doubts or questions arise, it is absolutely the case that Passing leaves one with a haunting sense of how easily lives can be changed since by the close we can see that what has come about has made a deep and unforeseen impact on Irene. Rebecca Hall as writer and director could hardly have made a more promising or more individual debut than this.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, André Holland, Bill Camp, Alexander Skarsgård, Gbenga Akirannagbe, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy, Justus Davis Graham, Ethan Barrett, Ashley Ware Jenkins. 

Dir Rebecca Hall, Pro Nina Yang Bongiovi, Rebecca Hall, Margot Hand and Forest Whitaker, Ex Pro Oren Moverman, Angela Robinson, Erika Hampson, Michael Y. Chow, Kevin A. Lin, Ruth Negga, Tessa Thompson, Lauren Dark, Daniel Battsek, Ollie Madden, Brenda Robinson, Chaz Ebert, Yvonne Huff, Christopher Liu, Arcadiy Golubovich, Dori A. Rath, Joseph J. Restaino, David Gendron and Ali Jazayeri, Screenplay Rebecca Hall, from the novel by Nella Larsen, Ph Eduard Grau, Pro Des Nora Mendis, Ed Sabine Hoffman, Music Devonté Hynes, Costumes Marci Rodgers, Sound Jacob Ribicoff. 

Significant Productions/Flat Five Productions/Picture Films/Film4-Netflix.
98 mins. UK/USA. 2021. Rel: 29 October 2021. Cert. 12A.