Edu Grau/Sundance Institute
MOVIE REVIEW
Passing (2021)
The four main actors are some of the best-looking currently working, more importantly with the acting skill to render dialogue basically unnecessary, and yet “Passing” is a bore. It should have been a tense domestic horror, since the plot revolves around a life-threatening, decades-long lie. On a sweltering day in Irene (Tessa Thompson) escapes the New York City heat in a cool hotel lobby where she spots Claire (Ruth Negga), whom she hasn’t seen since high school. Claire brings her up to her room, where they order a teapot of whiskey – this is during Prohibition – and start chatting, until Claire’s husband John (Alexander Skarsgård) interrupts. Three things become immediately clear: Claire is living as a white woman, the proudly racist John has no idea that his wife is black, and while Irene doesn’t normally pass for white herself, she can should she so choose.