{"id":62007,"date":"2021-10-30T01:34:35","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T01:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62007"},"modified":"2021-11-03T16:06:41","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T16:06:41","slug":"passing-review-ruth-negga-may-well-get-another-oscar-nomination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62007","title":{"rendered":"Passing review: Ruth Negga may well get another Oscar nomination"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passing <\/strong>review: Ruth Negga may well get another Oscar nomination<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Irish Times<\/a>
\n2021-10-29<\/p>\n

Donald Clarke<\/strong><\/a>, Chief Film Correspondent<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Ruth Negga<\/a> and Tessa Thompson<\/a> in Passing<\/em><\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

Film Title: Passing<\/em><\/a>
\nDirector: Rebecca Hall<\/a>
\nStarring: Tessa Thompson<\/a>, Ruth Negga<\/a>, Andr\u00e9 Holland<\/a>, Bill Camp<\/a>, Gbenga Akinnagbe<\/a>, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy<\/a>, Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd<\/a>
\nGenre: Drama
\nRunning Time: 98 min<\/small><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This delicately observed portrait of racial dynamics is worth seeing in the cinema<\/em><\/p>\n

If you sat down unsure whether you were being taken to another time, the gauzy monochrome and 4:3 aspect ratio would go some way to alleviating any doubt. Rebecca Hall\u2019s<\/a> take on a key African-American novel<\/a> shrugs off its modest budget to offer a convincingly transportive vision of Harlem<\/a> in the 1920s. Marci Rodgers\u2019s<\/a> costumes capture the prohibition lines without resorting to catwalky inverted-commas. The piano-heavy score from Devont\u00e9 Hynes<\/a> leans ever-so-gently on the bridge between ragtime and less jaunty sounds to come.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, no reason to set Passing<\/em> at any other time. Nella Larsen\u2019s book<\/a> is hardly buried in ancient obscurity. But it is still worth pointing towards the calendar. Any contemporary study of a black woman \u201cpassing\u201d for white would move out under very different winds. When largely sympathetic characters here twig that Clare (Ruth Negga<\/a>), a Chicagoan now married to an unsuspecting white jerk (Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd<\/a>), has taken on a Caucasian identity, there is variously surprise, irritation, curiosity, but little sense of shock and nothing you would call outrage. That last emotion is left for the racists. Passing<\/a> is no longer such an everyday business as it once was (which is not to suggest it doesn\u2019t happen). Any film dealing with such a story in the 21st century would necessarily play at a higher temperature. Hall\u2019s decision to cut a late, explosive use of the N-word in the journey from novel to screenplay \u2013 though another remains \u2013 confirms how the dynamics have altered…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This delicately observed portrait of racial dynamics is worth seeing in the cinema<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,5,8,6462,20],"tags":[32002,32233,16528,87,28879,827,19672,16526],"class_list":["post-62007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-alexander-skarsgard","tag-donald-clarke","tag-irish-times","tag-nella-larsen","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-ruth-negga","tag-tessa-thompson","tag-the-irish-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62007"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62067,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62007\/revisions\/62067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}