what's going on it's all my movie fans out there and welcome back to my channel movie files ellie
back again with a brand new netflix movie review and today we're breaking down the new drama by
the name of passing which i got the chance to check out the other night and i'm really
excited to let you all know what i thought about it let you know if it's worth checking
out on netflix when it becomes available this coming wednesday all in this spoiler-free review
before we break it all down do me a favor and check me out on all my other social media accounts
if you are new to the channel well welcome to the community consider subscribing and hitting
that notification bell that way you can get the alert when i drop new content if you all enjoyed
this spoiler free movie review well make sure to like and share the review it helps out the
channel a lot but i also appreciate the support and in those comments let me know if you guys got
the opportunity to see this earlier this year at sundance and if so will be your thoughts about it
but if you got the chance to see it on netflix recently what did you all think about the film
let's talk about the pros the cons performances the directorial debut of rebecca hall let's
talk about some of your criticisms and all your thoughts in the comments below so let's start off
with my positives first and foremost rebecca hall i've mentioned it most recently when i reviewed
her film that she was starting didn't direct it because again this is her directorial debut i
mentioned in my review of nighthouse i'm a big fan of hers i think she's such an underrated actress
so i was really excited to see her direct the film and i got to say i was pretty impressed now there
were moments that i'll talk about a little bit later that i think she missed some of the nuance
and some of the themes she was trying to tackle but for the most part this black and white film
addressing things like racism and identity and just kind of the conversation she brings to the
table i thought that she had this kind of really kind of vulnerable uh really kind of let you into
this narrative the way she shot the film it is in black and white which i thought helped out to
kind of put you in that time of the 20s so for the most part again i thought rebecca hall obviously a
talented actress but she definitely has a career in directing more films whether it be more dramas
or more dive into character pieces i thought she did a really good job but i do think her biggest
accomplishment was directing two of one of my two of my favorite actresses working today one being
tessa thompson who let's focus on her for a minute who plays irene who's our main character in the
film and if you guys do not know i guess i should have said this a little bit earlier in regards
to the synopsis again i'm gonna leave in the description you might have seen the trailer you
might not have seen the trailer but essentially it's a film that takes place in the in the 20s
we have this young lady by the name irene played by tessa thompson she stumbles across one of her
childhood friends played by ruth nega by the name of claire and they're both kind of fairly
light-skinned african-american women's during this time but they can pass for white women hence the
title of the name being passing which has a little bit more meaning to it once you see the film but
going back to my breakdown of irene i i thought tessa thompson as she always does
did a really good job in the role she plays a very believable character there's a lot of nuance in
her performance there's this kind of conflict in herself again the meaning behind this title can
mean so much not only does it mean yes she can pass as a white woman does she take advantage
of it hell yeah because during this time you know obviously with racism being at a a you know
a woman let alone a black woman going into an all-white store cannot be a good thing for her so
yes she does have to sometimes use that her life skinniness to his advantage and how that kind of
affects her her day-to-day life when she comes home to her black husband played by andre holland
she has two black kids so there's a lot of conflict with her at the same time when she comes
across her friend claire who is a little bit more fair to skinned in and definitely has become a
white woman at this point in her life which we'll talk about her in a second there's a little bit
of animosity a little bit of jealousy that she can kind of get away with this thing and we're seeing
irene tackling racism and kind of hiding racism so i thought that tessa thompson like i said as she
always does brings this vulnerability brings us believability brings this kind of caring for the
character and i really thought she did a great job and there were some criticisms that i have with
the character which we'll leave for a little bit later but for the most part as i come to respect
tyson thompson never disappoints but i gotta say the person that really kind of stole the
film for me was her co-lead and ruth nega who i've always been a fan of i think she's
fantastic but she plays claire again the person that has at this point talk about identity crisis
she's a full-on white woman she's married a white man played by alexander scarzard she has kids she
has this kind of luxurious lifestyle and she has yet to really tell her husband who she really is
and where she comes from so obviously seeing her character tiptoeing around the big obvious thing
that she kind of has you know this black heritage and knowing that her husband which if you guys see
the film alexander skarsgard center 20. he's a white man he's a business owner he doesn't like
black people so there's obviously some conflict there but just seeing you know claire hanging
around black people letting her hair down kind of you know at this you know and and all the stuff
that she's trying to enjoy this kind of two life that she's living in the film i thought that roof
really brought a good sense of the character to the role and again i was just very impressed by
her and i thought that she really kind of stole the film from me personally again i mentioned
andre hollands in the film who doesn't have a huge role he's the husband in the film but he has some
integral parts of the movie i thought he's great as he always is alexander scarzard has a really
small role in this film but i thought that he was fantastic as well but i thought across the board
all the cast members brought their a game but again it was ruth naga who stole the film and
tessa thompson brings a really good sensibility to her role and i thought the direction was solid and
just kind of touching on the themes without giving too much away because there are moments i want you
all to discover this film like i did again this whole passing narrative as the obvious meaning
being that a fairly skinny light-skinned black woman can get away to being a white woman there's
obviously that narrative that the film tackles which i thought handle it okay and we'll we'll
talk about that here in a second but i thought the biggest thing that took away from the film was
the passing of who you are as a person we see the irene character passing as a good wife paz
has a happy wife passing as a a black woman with a pretty good situation husband's a doctor
her sons are in good health she you know is doing good and and kind of has a good thing going on in
her life but she's passing to be happy but there's more conflict within herself again hiding racism
for her from her sons pretending to be black and you know not pretending to be black but pretending
to be white at points so there are moments that she's just passing through life pretending that
everything's okay same could be said about claire she's happy with her husband but she doesn't like
the fact she has to keep her identity uh you know kept safe so i like how the film tackles identity
and insecurities that are attacked that our our characters have to deal with on a
day-to-day basis which brings me to my criticisms i thought that rebecca hall did a great job
at identifying and kind of really tackling identity crisis but when it comes to the racism i
don't think that all the nuance was there and kind of the narrative she was trying to tell i thought
it was very surface level in a sense of how they tackled the racism and and how again we're in the
20s and what that could have meant there are several conversations in the film that racism
has brought up but i think the film just kind of glances over it again they spent a lot of good
time on focusing on the identity crisis but not so much on the racism that our characters is going
through so i did feel like that was a little bit kind of lost in translation with rebecca hall's
direction as well as the writing in the film which also brings me to the tessa thompson character
there are moments that again i just wish they would have dove just a little bit deeper it
wasn't the performance but it was just the characteristics i wish we could have dove a little
bit deeper in her character the relationship with her husband this kind of unspoken
love triangle that the film kind of presents that it really doesn't dive into so at the end of the
day i think my biggest criticism lies within the surface level of the racism as well as there's a
there's a couple more themes that the film tries to present but none of them just like fully felt
fleshed out to me so there are things that are like that's interesting that's interesting but
we don't really focus on too many of them to really give me a a one of them i could say that
was a fantastic job with a handle there so a lot of good things but just i overall i don't think
that they tackled every single subject matter with the full development they that i think that they
could have so with all that being said before i give you all my overall thoughts and give you my
score make sure if you haven't already to like the video share the video leave your thoughts in the
comments with that being said overall two great performances by two leads tessa thompson ruth nega
i'm pretty impressive directorial debut by rebecca hall and the supporting cast brings their a game
but unfortunately there are some nuances i thought were missing and one of the big narratives and the
racism of the story i felt like there were moments that the film just presented a little bit too many
things that they just really fully fleshed them out as i thought they did and also the third act
kind of ended abruptly which again this isn't a film i was expecting this grandiose type of
finale but i thought the finale left a little bit more to desire but at the end of the day
there are way more positives and negatives so i'm going to give passing a 3.5 out of 5. i recommend
you all give it a shot again really two great performances really good directions some really
good kind of subject matters and themes the film tries to tackle and i recommend you all give it
a shot and when you do let me know your thoughts your pros your cons what you think the direction
the themes that the film presented some of the things that stood out to you all were some
moments you can relate to the story let's talk about your negatives as well let's talk about
it all in the comments below if you stuck around to this point in review i appreciate every single
one of you all before you leave make sure if you haven't already to like the video share the
video subscribe to the channel and hit that bell that way you don't miss any of my future reviews
hope you all enjoyed this review hope you're staying safe and as you can see on the screen now
subscribe to my channel check out my other content and we'll catch you in the next video
you