Rebecca Hall makes her feature directorial debut with film adaptation starring Tessa Thompson of widely lauded Nella Larsen novel
Actress Rebecca Hall’s (The Prestige, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) auspicious first directorial feature Passing initiates with, and maintains throughout, a delicately crafted yet restrained atmosphere and characters. Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson, Thor: Ragnarok, Creed), a mixed-race woman of Black and Caucasian descent, is briskly strolling through uptown 1920s New York while running some errands on a searing-hot day. We first see her feet traversing the sweltering concrete past a sea of exclusively white people. She has a rote, elegant cadence in her stride that seems to mostly match those around her. Irene’s heels swiftly enter a toy store, as if she must exit it just as quickly. A white woman inadvertently drops a toy near Irene’s feet. The camera pans up her body, which is shrouded in pristine upper-class garb, to her hands as she considerately returns it to the white lady before it reveals her face, which is concealed in its upper half by her adorned hat positioned in both mesmerizing and chilling fashion, as she smiles behind a discretely perturbed expression. The white woman expresses her gratitude, but Irene is fully aware that she would not if she knew her secret.
Film adaptations are quite arduous, especially of classic novels. Filmmakers have an obligation to translate written text into the language of cinema, which is comprised of literary, auditory and visual elements, while also capturing their own creative voices. In addition, Hall’s tenacity to translate author Nella Larsen’s Passing, a book that is literally wall-to-wall sociopolitical subtext and one that you have a high probability of having read or reading in high school or college, as her inaugural film in the director’s chair entailed even more lofty goals, but she may have just balanced this tricky tightrope.
Congruent with its source material, though with some modifications to streamline the plot a bit, Rebecca Hall’s elegant new film Passing chronicles the unanticipated reunion of two former, estranged friends, both biracial white-Black women who resemble Caucasian closely enough to “pass” in social situations, and subsequent unraveling of their relationship as it tests both their carefully cultivated realities.
Following her hasty exodus from the toy store, Irene witnesses a man collapse from the crippling heat. Fearing that the gestating crowd will discover her true identity, she flees to a posh “white only” hotel for rejuvenating tea. A woman who appears to be white approaches claiming to know her; though at first perplexed, she soon realizes this individual is Clare Kendry (Ruth Negga, Oscar nominee for Loving), and she is now living fully as a white woman incognito, unbeknownst to her flagrantly racist husband John Bellew (Alexander Skarsgård, Big Little Lies) with whom she has a child (This element adds a sizeable amount of tension to the story: John could surmise his family’s actual racial makeup at any time, which is encapsulated in a taut scene among Thompson, Negga, and Skarsgård near the beginning.)
What ensues is a pensive and subtle tale of deceit, mutual obsession and the plight of individuals victimized by a binary system. Irene and Clare are living diametrically different lives: the former resides in Harlem with her Black husband (André Holland, Moonlight) and two kids, and the latter is conforming to the previously delineated lie of white domesticity. Neither are truly content, though, as Irene longs to not fret over the sociological disparities that pervade Black people, doing as much to disregard their existence entirely, and Clare grows envious of Irene’s comfortability with African American culture. However, both have shrouded themselves in facades that only dictate one facet of their respective and nuanced identities because American society has exerted oppressive standards onto them. They cannot be biracial: only Black or white. This determination of one’s being by outside forces certainly reverberates into our current landscape and could be applied to countless social issues.
Hall has meticulously crafted a film that is dimensional and engrossing. She keenly transfers the subtext of Larsen’s words in her seminal work into the miraculous aesthetic of her tactile frames. This film is shot in exquisite black-and-white cinematography and a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is like a square box, that deftly visualizes the restraints placed upon these women. It blends different genre elements with panache, juggling psychological drama and period detail: it is a film that feels dreamlike and visceral all in one stroke (Clare is introduced in an equally gorgeous and surreally hazy wide shot that best epitomizes this). Characters do not overtly discuss the issues at the story’s center, but it is evoked through Hall’s observant, sensitive cinematic lens, exuding a haunting beauty.
Thompson and Negga also vitalize so much of this film. They deliver raw and captivating work, imbuing the film with a substantial amount of thrilling intimacy. A single glance or inflection communications bounds of material for these characters who are intricately outspoken and vulnerable.
There are no scenes of external professions but ones of internalized pain and meditation with monumental implications. It does function actively as an enigma, demanding rigorous dissection like its literary predecessor, but this approach universalizes the themes into broader political observations while retaining the specificity of the characters and atmosphere. Elegant yet bridled, like the women at its center, Passing is certainly cryptic on occasion, but that also renders an inherently enthralling and unbridled piece of cinema.
Grade: A-
“Passing” was screened at Sundance Film Festival 2021 and is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
Photo Credit / Sundance
