‘Passing’ movie review: A gossamer treatment of tough, everlasting questions

Rebecca Hall creates a wonderful snapshot of 1920s New York, and also deftly tackle questions of gender, motherhood and more

While at first glance, Rebecca Hall’s delicately-put together directorial debut, Passing, looks like it is only about race, the second and third looks reveal it to deftly tackle questions of gender, motherhood, identity, class, sexuality and spousal jealousy.

Based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 book, Passing, the film tells the story of two women, Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga) who knew each other in school but lost touch as they grew up. When Irene runs into Clare at an upscale hotel in New York, a Pandora’s Box is unpacked. In the reluctant and prickly relationship between the two women, a bunch of issues come up for scrutiny. Though both Irene and Clare are light-skinned African-Americans, Irene identifies as African-American, marries black doctor Brian (André Holland) and lives in Harlem, while Clare ‘passes’ as white having married a white man, John (Alexander Skarsgård).

Though Irene can be perceived as being moral and upright and Clare as being shallow, things are not so simple. Irene is jealous of Clare’s vivacity and what she perceives as Brian and her children’s fascination for Clare. While all for equality among races, Irene has an African-American maid, Zu (Ashley Ware Jenkins), who she treats with equal measures of condescension and impatience.