Rebecca Hall makes her directorial debut in black and white.
1920s. Wealthy African American Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) masquerades as a white woman to avoid a threat to her life. One hot day she meets a school friend Claire Kendry (Oscar nominee Ruth Negg), who has long "changed" her identity. An accidental reunion brings two women closer together, forcing the heroines to take risky actions.
"Passing" is based on Nella Larsen's novel Passing. The writer was one of the leading authors of the so-called Harlem Renaissance, a movement that emerged in the early 20th century to rid society of stereotypical thinking about African Americans. Hall also acts as a screenwriter here, feeling a special connection with the material even at the stage of preparation. Her mother, opera singer Maria Ewing, was of mixed ancestry with African American and Scottish ancestry; has also been associated with the indigenous population of America. For the first time, the actress steps behind the camera to record the fear of people who are deprived of their race, trying on someone else's reality in the hope of survival, passing from generation to generation.
Irene is quite prosperous and can afford a lot - to live in a prestigious quarter with her husband-doctor Brian (Andre Holland) and two sons, to have a maid whose skin color is darker than her; leisurely stroll through the same shops as white women. But the newspaper headlines with news of murdered black teenagers, hanged or shot on false charges, are screaming louder, and the more desperately the heroine ignores them. The woman has a friendship with the eminent poet Hugh (Bill Camp), goes to parties, although she refuses to dance, as if embarrassed by her own people, dreaming of separating from them as soon as possible.
In the heat, Irene walks into the hotel to cool off and renew the whitewash on her face. A couple sit down at the table opposite, where, in a fashionably dressed, quite Hollywood-looking woman with piercing eyes, Irene recognizes Claire, with whom she once studied. Claire behaves imposingly, her "pass" into the world of white people works flawlessly and leaves even her own racist husband (Alexander Skarsgard) in the dark. He uses n-word, hates blacks and laughs loudly at this fact. Irene and Claire are also laughing loudly and deliberately, although they are well aware that only by some miracle they are still alive.
Claire firmly enters into Irene's life, flirts with her husband, falls in love with her children, dances at parties and seems to be romantically attracted to Irene, experiencing her precarious status and patience. If one can only guess about the incipient homosexual attraction of the audience (one of the film's strange vagueness for 2021, which can be attributed to Hall's novice author status), then with claustrophobia, fear of one's own ambitions, separation from the world, part of which you are still considered, you have to face from the very first minutes. Hall deliberately paints the film in binary colors in order to bring out the conflicting nature of the heroines in them, not limited to the division into black and white, making its way through the asphalt, rolling all hopes and dreams in concrete.
Irene is jealous of Claire, her freedom from constraints and maternal exhaustion, her wealth and her successful disguise. The decision she made in the final minutes of the film turns out to be just as contradictory and spontaneous, suggesting many interpretations and reeking of Russian literature of the 19th century. From the heat and summer heat, the bond of two women migrates to Christmas Eve, but the action does not conceal any festivity and expectation of a miracle, bringing only sacrifices, fatal release and falling snow, like in a decorative glass ball (exit from it has long been ordered).
Thompson and Negga have previously worked on projects that discuss and reveal the topic of racial discrimination in different ways: the first had the sensational indie comedy Dear White People, the second participated in the historical drama Loving about love and marriage of an interracial couple, receiving for her Oscar nomination. Here their duet raises many questions, from tenderness and almost scientific interest in each other flowing into an unspoken or invisible rivalry for the search for a better life. Both are brilliant at handling imagery, encrypting Irene and Claire's intentions, exposing their fragility. The organic accompaniment is the cameraman Ed Grau, who worked on "The Lonely Man" and "Buried Alive", whose camera manages to penetrately capture the fluidity and specularity of what is happening, his mysticism.
Hall's first experience turned out to be intimate, somewhat academic and restrained, but definitely ambitious, offering a fresh look at the history of racism. That continues today, spreading the virus, acquiring new strains. The director does not set the task of imitating the large-scale, pain-screaming works of Steve McQueen ("Oscar-winning" "12 Years of Slavery") and Barry Jenkins (TV series "Underground Railroad") - her pain and humiliation are internalized, still poison, deprive sleep and air ... For a while, the heroines manage to fight back the circumstances - and then inside of themselves they definitely dance.
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