Passing

Filmed with an aspect ratio of 4:3. Shot in black and white. Passing just sounds like one big ol' affectation. Over here we might even scoff and accuse it of having notions. But as you watch it you'll realise both decisions make perfect sense in terms of it's claustrophobic feel and it's story layered with as many shades of gray as you see onscreen.

Passing means being part of one racial group but being able to pass for another one. In Pre-Civil war America the ability to pass as white was a way for slaves to hold on to their freedom if they managed to escape slavery. After abolition it was a way for light skinned Black people thrive in a country that despised them. Half a century after the emancipation proclamation Clare Bellew (Ruth Negga, Gwan Limerick!) is still passing and she's living a well off but unhappy life in New York, married to a white doctor with no knowledge of her past. On a melting hot day in the city she bumps into Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson), a friend from her past who she's lost contact with. Claire lives in Harlem with her husband Brian (Andre Holland) and her two children and she too is light skinned enough to pass as white when she travels downtown but for Claire it's just a way for her to escape from regular life for a few hours every now and then. They stay in contact but slowly Claire realises that their life choices are leading them somewhere troubling.

Passing feels as delicate as a cobweb you'll see on a frosty morning but under that quiet,calm and fragile demeanour, there's anger and there's fire. It's mirrored in Irene, who's first, caught off guard meeting with Claire starts in wonderment that quickly turns to something else when she meets Claire's openly racist husband John (Alexander Skarsgård) and realises how far her old friend has gone to keep her secrets from him. She begins to both resent and envy Claire, jealous of how her passing has opened up society to her but also longing for it too. Claire too desires a return to the past, before she had to deceive to survive, when she could feel comfortable in her own skin, be around people like her but she's lived a lie for too long now, she has kids she cannot leave. It's a tangle of secrets and lies and for African Americans in the roaring twenties there's not many ways out.

The claustrophobia both feel in their renewed relationship is made palpable by the film's boxlike framing and Irene's steadfast refusal to say the things she means to say put a strained edge on every encounter leaving us viewers unable to relax. Director Rebecca Hall, who's own grandmother passed for white during her life, uses a subtle and steady hand, leaving certain things vague and others unsaid leading to an ending that can be interpreted in any number of ways but ultimately it's a powerful treatise on racism that rarely feels the need to be blunt about it. It's a subject Irene won't allow to be discussed in her house even when her husband wants to educate their kids in the horrible ways of the world. It's what's shaped her life and forced her friend to change her entire existence and it once again lays bare the complicated relationship race and the people most affected by it will always have.

Passing is out now on Netflix. It's a strong, beautifully crafted and wonderfully acted adaption of Nella Larsen's 1929 novel that will certainly strike a chord with a modern day audience used to carefully curating an outward appearance for themselves. Except for the fact that we'll never be in danger for it.