{"id":39065,"date":"2021-10-29T12:51:52","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T12:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=39065"},"modified":"2021-10-29T12:51:52","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T12:51:52","slug":"passing-review-tessa-thompson-ruth-negga","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/passing-review-tessa-thompson-ruth-negga\/","title":{"rendered":"Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga Are Luminous in \u2018Passing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ruth
Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson in Passing<\/i> (Photos: Edu Grau\/courtesy of Sundance Institute)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Identity is a slippery thing; it\u2019s both self-constructed and imposed upon us by the world in which we live. Passing<\/em>, writer\/director Rebecca Hall\u2019s adaptation of Nella Larsen\u2019s 1929 novel explores these themes via its central characters, a pair of mixed-race friends who reconnect in 1920s Harlem. The divine Tessa Thompson<\/a> plays Irene\u2014Reenie to just about everyone\u2014a married, well-to-do mother of two who is active in the borough\u2019s vibrant civic and cultural life. She is, as she tells her husband Brian (Andr\u00e9 Holland)\u2014and perhaps herself\u2014satisfied<\/em> with the life she\u2019s made. She has everything she ever wanted.<\/p>\n

But a chance encounter at the beginning of the film upends all of that. While passing for Caucasian at the white-only restaurant atop a tony hotel, Reenie catches the eye of an old childhood friend Clare (Ruth Negga). Unlike Reenie, Clare isn\u2019t just passing for the afternoon. She\u2019s married to a white man (Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd) who knows nothing about her heritage and is openly racist.<\/p>\n

Sensing the knife\u2019s edge upon which Clare walks, Reenie is initially reluctant to reconnect with her old friend. But Clare is persistent, visiting Reenie\u2019s home and eventually insinuating herself into Reenie\u2019s life. Clare\u2019s secret, of course, has taken a toll on her, and she finds comfort and release among Harlem\u2019s Black community at the dances, jazz clubs and social functions she attends with Reenie and Brian. At the same time Clare\u2019s presence begins to take a toll on Reenie. Everyone\u2014including her sons and especially Brian\u2014is charmed by this beautiful, vivacious interloper, and Reenie\u2019s sense of self is profoundly destabilized by Clare\u2019s ability to effortlessly traverses what are supposed to be inviolable spheres. Why, she wonders, is it not enough for Clare to simply enjoy the benefits of whiteness? Must she also have Reenie\u2019s world as well?<\/p>\n