{"id":62035,"date":"2021-11-02T19:48:36","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T19:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62035"},"modified":"2021-11-02T19:48:37","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T19:48:37","slug":"passing-review-rebecca-halls-stylish-and-subtle-study-of-racial-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62035","title":{"rendered":"Passing review \u2013 Rebecca Hall\u2019s stylish and subtle study of racial identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passing review \u2013 Rebecca Hall\u2019s stylish and subtle study of racial identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2021-10-28<\/p>\n

Peter Bradshaw<\/strong><\/a>, Guardian Film Critic<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Hypnotic \u2026 Tessa Thompson<\/a> and Andr\u00e9 Holland<\/a> in Passing<\/em><\/a>. Photograph: Netflix<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hall\u2019s directing debut stars Tessa Thompson<\/a> and Ruth Negga<\/a> as friends who are both \u2018passing\u2019 for what they are not in an adaptation of Nella Larsen\u2019s 1929 novel<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Rebecca Hall<\/a> makes her directing debut with this intimately disturbing movie, adapted by her from the 1929 novel<\/a> by Nella Larsen<\/a>. Irene (Tessa Thompson<\/a>) and Clare (Ruth Negga<\/a>) are two women of colour, former school friends who run into each other by chance in an upscale Manhattan<\/a> hotel in prohibition-era America<\/a>. They are both light-skinned, but Irene is stunned to realise that her vivacious and now peroxide blonde<\/a> friend Clare is \u201cpassing\u201d for white<\/a> these days, and that her odious, wealthy white husband John (Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd<\/a>) has no idea. As for sober and respectable Irene, she lives with her black doctor husband Brian (Andr\u00e9 Holland<\/a>) in Harlem<\/a> with their two sons and a black maid that she treats a little high-handedly.<\/p>\n

There is an almost supernatural shiver in Irene and Clare\u2019s meeting: as if the two women are the ghosts of each other\u2019s alternative life choices. Irene is herself passing for middle class, passing for successful: she has an entr\u00e9e into modish artistic circles through her friendship with the celebrated white novelist Hugh Wentworth (Bill Camp<\/a>) who is passing for straight. But there is something else. Clare is also passing for happily married. The dangerously transgressive Clare, for whom this chance meeting has triggered a desperate homesickness for her black identity, demands access to Irene\u2019s life and simperingly makes Brian\u2019s acquaintance…<\/p>\n

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

Hall\u2019s directing debut stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga as friends who are both \u2018passing\u2019 for what they are not in an adaptation of Nella Larsen\u2019s 1929 novel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8,6462,20],"tags":[32002,31962,32107,87,32259,28879,827,19672,2103],"class_list":["post-62035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-alexander-skarsgard","tag-andre-holland","tag-bill-camp","tag-nella-larsen","tag-peter-bradshaw","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-ruth-negga","tag-tessa-thompson","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62035","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=62035"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62037,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62035\/revisions\/62037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}