{"id":62416,"date":"2021-11-28T17:12:28","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T17:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62416"},"modified":"2021-11-28T17:12:29","modified_gmt":"2021-11-28T17:12:29","slug":"passing-reviewed-rebecca-halls-anguished-vision-of-black-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62416","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPassing,\u201d Reviewed: Rebecca Hall\u2019s Anguished Vision of Black Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cPassing,\u201d Reviewed: Rebecca Hall\u2019s Anguished Vision of Black Identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New Yorker<\/a>
\n2021-11-08<\/p>\n

Richard Brody<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Ruth Negga<\/a> and Tessa Thompson<\/a> star in Rebecca Hall\u2019s<\/a> \u201cPassing<\/a>,\u201d a drama of images and self-images.<\/em> Photograph courtesy Netflix<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With a remarkable fusion of substance and style, Hall\u2019s adaptation of Nella Larsen\u2019s 1929 novel<\/a> unfolds inner lives along with social crises.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rebecca Hall\u2019s<\/a> directorial d\u00e9but, \u201cPassing<\/a>,\u201d based on Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> 1929 novel of the same name<\/a>, is one of the rare book adaptations that brings a literary style to the screen. The film\u2019s sense of style is more than mere ornament; it embodies the confrontation with circumstances\u2014practical, emotional, historical\u2014at the heart of the story. \u201cPassing\u201d (coming to Netflix<\/a> on Wednesday) is a period piece, set in Harlem<\/a> during Prohibition<\/a>, just before the Depression<\/a>. The movie achieves an ample, resonant reconstruction of that era, but it doesn\u2019t feature colossal sets or give the sense that entire neighborhoods were transformed for the purpose of shooting. Instead, Hall uses sharply defined locations imaginatively and conjures the time through her original way with light, texture, and gesture, all redolent of a storied yet troubled past. The result is an emotional immediacy that\u2019s all the sharper for its subtlety, all the more intense for its contemplative refinement, and that, above all, gives apt expression to the film\u2019s mighty and agonized subject.<\/p>\n

The movie stars Tessa Thompson<\/a> as Irene Redfield, a woman of about thirty who lives in a Harlem town house with her husband\u2014Brian (Andr\u00e9 Holland<\/a>), a doctor\u2014and their two sons, one a child and the other on the cusp of puberty. She\u2019s an activist who works as a volunteer for a (fictitious) charitable organization called the Negro League while also running the household. A light-skinned Black woman, she\u2019s taken for white by white people in the course of her errands outside Harlem on a hot summer day. At a hotel caf\u00e9, Irene encounters Clare Bellew (Ruth Negga<\/a>), a friend from high school whom she hasn\u2019t seen in a dozen years. Clare, too, has light skin\u2014but, unlike Irene, she intentionally passes for white<\/a>. She\u2019s married to a wealthy white banker named John (Alexander Skarsg\u00e5rd<\/a>) and lives her entire life amid white society. Clare\u2019s reunion with Irene (whom she calls Reenie) awakens a long-suppressed desire to exist among Black people, to affirm her own identity without shame or fear. Clare imposes herself on the Redfield household, befriends Brian and the boys, takes part in Negro League social events run by Irene\u2014and, in doing so, knowingly confronts the grave risk that John will find out that she\u2019s Black…<\/p>\n

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

With a remarkable fusion of substance and style, Hall\u2019s adaptation of Nella Larsen\u2019s 1929 novel unfolds inner lives along with social crises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[32002,31962,87,29469,28879,32545,827,19672,3886],"class_list":["post-62416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-alexander-skarsgard","tag-andre-holland","tag-nella-larsen","tag-netflix","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-richard-brody","tag-ruth-negga","tag-tessa-thompson","tag-the-new-yorker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62416","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=62416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62417,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62416\/revisions\/62417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}