Passing is rather like a windless snowfall: soft and gorgeous, gentle and consistent even as it buries you.
It was an experience so deceptively simple, so beautiful and disconcerting, that I am not sure how I feel about it. And though I believe there is no right way to do a movie, I think Passing is a movie done right.
Irene is our North Star here, reliably unchanging as the storm unfolds around her. Her typical day is spent in a state of nervous agitation: prepping for high society events, worrying, or napping. The moviemakers hint at both existential malaise and drugs as the culprits.
One day, she tries something different. And in this extraordinary time for her, she happens upon an old friend, Clare. The meeting changes their lives.
Clare, apparently, is pretending to be white. And the husband has no idea.
The story and its themes unfold as Irene prepares for the latest society event, now with Clare once again in her life. What will happen next? Will Clare be found out? Will she implicate Irene? Above this underlying nervous energy are the many other layers of emotion, including, perhaps, romantic ones.
Simple but gorgeous motifs balance out all these weighty topics just as well as they complement them. Light passes through and bounces and refracts around every inch of the picture. Piano keys flit down our ear canals like cars outside the window, a recurring city refrain reminding us of time and place. Scenes transition just as softly as the movie begins and ends. A dissolution into nothing, or everything.
Sometimes, when a thing is done really well, you don’t notice it. This movie plays with that idea, in a serious way. I will not soon forget it.