Passing (2021)

Score: 5 / 5

The movie begins with Irene, sitting alone in a hotel dining room in broad daylight. The sun streaming in lights up her white dress and white hat like an angelic robe and halo. A few furtive looks around her -- the camera subtly switches to her perspective a few times -- reveals that this is almost certainly an establishment for whites only, as the only other patrons are indeed pale. Irene herself has fairly light skin, and the gorgeous and dangerous black-and-white cinematography makes it particularly difficult to determine hue gradations. The camera does linger on Irene for a while, studying her incognito face with her dark hair and dark eyes barely visible beneath the brim of her lacy hat.

As the lengthy, almost wordless introduction to the film continues, the camera again uses Irene's perspective to survey the room. Is Irene, as the title suggests, a woman of color passing as white? It seems likely, even if you don't know the excellent performer to be Tessa Thompson. As she gazes at the white women in the sparsely populated restaurant, she locks in on one in particular. The shot lingers far too long as the other woman returns her stare. They recognize each other, but how? Or perhaps are they simply recognizing in each other a similar secret? It's an intoxicating scene, helped by intelligent editing, and one that effectively sets up the film to follow. This movie may be about words and ideas, but it's much more about lived experience.

Irene, we soon gather, only passes for white on occasion, when it might be especially beneficial to her, or when she just needs a brief escape from her life as a Black woman in Harlem in the 1920s. The other woman, Clare, does it much more frequently. In fact, as Irene's former classmate tells her, Clare is so light-skinned that she was able to marry a white man and live acting as a white woman. Played by the brilliant Ruth Negga, Clare seems hungry for the life of being authentically Black, having hidden her true self behind layers of conventional white mannerisms, speech patterns, and behaviors. But now, reconnecting with her old friend over their secrets and their history, Clare tries to hitch a ride on Irene's coattails into Black Harlem culture for the explicit purpose -- she says later in the film, before a dance -- "to see Negroes." Much as the Black men stare at this light-skinned flapper, Clare stares right back, drinking in the vibrant exclusivity of Black jazz nightlife. In these scenes, which make up most of the middle of the film, Clare shares a lot with Hugh (Bill Camp), a white writer who is nominally an ally to Irene and the Negro Welfare League, but who attends to watch the party like a child watching Sunday morning cartoons.

She's a mysterious character -- much like Irene, actually -- and we're meant to discover her bit by bit along with the protagonist. Is Irene's husband Brian (Andre Holland) in awe of Clare like the other men, or is his attention more intimate or lustful? Does Clare truly enjoy the privileged life of acting white, and if so, is she only using Irene to exert her own false sense of control over her secret identity? Perhaps the most arresting scenes involve the film's stand-in for a villain, Clare's racist husband John (Alexander Skarsgård). In his introductory scene, he is fooled into thinking both Clare and Irene are white; in his perceived safe space, he reveals his monstrous pet name for his wife, "Nig," earned as a result of her "getting darker and darker every year." The subtle reactions of the women in this scene -- and in the whole film -- constitute a masterclass of screen acting. Will Irene out her friend? What will be John's reaction?

That Passing, with all its impossibly complex themes and worrisome ideas, is Rebecca Hall's debut as director will never not blow my mind. It's an astonishing, confident, and nuanced work that brought to my mind similar films of split, shared, and conflicted racial identity such as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, BlacKkKlansman, and of course both versions of Imitation of Life. With its heavy material, Hall is deliberate in her choices and pacing, which might sacrifice the attention of some viewers. But if you tap into its ebb and flow, the third act of the film will pull you out like a riptide and leave you breathless. It's a faithful adaptation of its source material that is also faithful to a modern audience; its gorgeous presentation in black and white the only heavy-handed artistic choice (one that I fully, enthusiastically support) in what is otherwise the most contemplative and thoughtful chamber piece in a year full of cinematic bombast.