Passing

Tessa Thompson in Passing

Rebecca Hall's Passing, an adaptation of Nella Larsen's 1929 novel, is largely a success, revealing Hall to be as graceful and thoughtful behind the camera as in front of it. Tessa Thompson portrays Irene, a mother of two boys who lives in a brownstone in Harlem with her doctor husband, Brian (Andre Holland). Irene and Brian are part of what W.E.B. Dubois characterized as "the talented tenth", the educated elite of the Afro-American population of the early twentieth century. Irene and Brian are shown supporting progressive social causes, but both are portrayed as staid and a bit rigid in their conventionality. Irene is especially snobbish in her treatment of her black cook, Zulena.

Irene and Brian's lives are upended when Clare (Ruth Negga), a childhood friend of Irene's from Chicago, bumps into Irene while on a visit to New York. Clare, a mulatto, is married to John, a white banker, and is passing as white. Clare feels trapped in her life with John, who, quicker than you can say Tom Buchanan, reveals himself to be a racist cad. Clare reconnects with her negritude thanks to Irene and Brian and they, in turn, are attracted to Clare's glamor and free-spiritedness. Soon, the threesome are enjoying Harlem's nightlife together where they hobnob with a Carl Van Vechten like writer played by the always welcome Bill Camp.

Camp provides some humor to what threatens to become a humorless melodrama. Indeed, a pot of milk boiling over is used at one juncture to (too) bluntly signal the simmering racial and sexual conflicts. The romantic triangle of the film was already a cliché by 1929, it usually involved a blithe flapper upsetting the balance of a marital union. Hall retains the attraction between Irene and Clare, but wisely jettisons Brian's repressed homosexuality. There are already enough repressed passions and social signifiers for a ninety minute film. 

Hall keeps the ambiguous and tragic ending of the book, but she ameliorates the problematic finale with a number of distancing techniques. Shooting the picture in black and white and in an old fashioned boxlike ratio (1.37:1) gives the film an other worldly feel, as if this past was a different country that cannot be regained or fully fathomed. The circular structure of the film adds to this uncanny vibe with both the beginning and end of the film fading in and out of focus. A body on the pavement at the film's start foretells the denouement.

Hall's grasp of cinematic technique is matched by her assurance with her players. Andre Holland is a consummate actor. He is more than adequate in a part that suffers from being the token male lead in what they used to call melodramas: women's pictures. Ruth Negga gets to show off in the flashier female lead role. Hall utilizes Negga's body well, but I thought Negga channeled Vivian Leigh a little too much vocally. Tessa Thompson gives the best performance here and one of the better performances of the year. Her Irene is a modern woman, but one still governed by Victorian gentility and propriety. Not a fun performance, but one that serves the film ideally.