Passing

 

        Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson in “Passing.” Netflix image via IMDB

It comes as one of those aha moments when you remember that what we call black and white is, instead, an endless palette of grays. Our shared longing for simple answers keeps reminding us how hard they are to come by in these technologically trying times.

Black and white promises sharp, clear choice – gray, just the opposite.

This cosmic irony informs every glorious frame of Netflix's new Oscar hopeful, “Passing,” right up to its climax, whose ambiguity keeps resonating days after seeing it. It marks an impressive writing and directing debut for English actress Rebecca Hall, following the similar career trajectory that led “Promising Young Woman's” Emerald Fennell to an Oscar win last year.

Set in mostly Harlem in the 1920s, “Passing” tells of two friends who grew up poor and black in Chicago. They are reunited after losing touch for decades, by a chance encounter in a Manhattan tea room. Irene, or “Reenie” Redfield (Tessa Thompson) is the wife of a Harlem physician (André Holland) and mother of two young sons who spends her days as a volunteer for Negro causes.

Claire Bellew (Ruth Negga) has built an equally successful life “passing” as a white woman.

Irene's fascinated wonder at Claire's seeming ease in this bizarre role turns to disgust when she meets Claire's husband John (Alexander Skarsgaard). He's a smug bigot who doesn't realize either woman's race when he assures Irene he doesn't dislike Negroes … he hates them. When she shares the experience with her husband later that evening, he echoes her distain. But when Claire barges into their lives to pursue the friendship, his feelings, uh, evolve.

Claire has that effect. She captivates almost everyone she encounters, beginning with Reenie's young sons and her maid. Irene's white friend Hugh (Bill Camp), an author and social commentator who also advocates for black justice, is one of the few who can withstand Claire's charms. When Claire asks Irene what draws white people of Hugh's class to Harlem, Irene answers matter-of-factly, “to look at Negroes.”

Besides his adherence to causes, Hugh is a regular in Harlem's vibrant speakeasies and nightclubs, where his wife finds an endless parade of dance partners for the sensual syncopation of the dance floor.

Claire's insinuation into Irene's life and the Redfield household is sparked by her memories and feelings, long buried, of the cultural lifeblood she has discarded. It also throws the orderliness of Irene's life into total disarray.

To say more about the plot would spoil the nuanced ambiguities of Hall's screenplay, adapted from a 1929 novel by Nella Larsen. The story, seemingly simple, is an elegant but fragile house of emotional cards, ambiguity stacked on ambiguity, ready to topple – or explode, or implode – at any moment. 

The two leads are mesmerizing, ably supported by the rest of the cast. But “Passing's” shooting star is cinematographer Edu Grau. The lead actresses' luminescence is framed by his black-and-white backdrops, whether tracking shots along perfectly realized city blocks of apartment houses, or meditations on the disquieting shadows of their interiors. 

Grau can convey changes of season shooting the same black branches arching over the sidewalk against different shades of gray in the sky. “Passing” is a movie that makes you watch, as dazzling for the eyes as it is troubling for its story.

On first glance it would seem to suggest how little advancement there's been in addressing America's racial challenges in the century since the book was written. More reflection leads to a more disquieting conclusion. “Passing's” 1920s time frame is closer to the Civil War than to our millennium. The strictures of segregation still reigned with impunity in much of the country, and invisibly in the shadows everywhere else. 

Despite his success as a physician, Irene's husband knows he will never be welcomed in mainstream society, and insists on sharing current news stories of lynchings and injustices with their sons, over Irene's attempts to shield the boys from the news. And yet, even in the face of this dangerous inequality, they live in a secure environment, at least as vibrant and creative as the upscale addresses of Manhattan a few miles to the south. The world of their making that Claire longs to return to is, in fact, an enviable alternative to the bland white world to which she has gained entry.

In those times, bigotry lay just under the veneer of American institutions. In our times, those institutions themselves are under fire for sins committed in the distant, irredeemable past. But “Passing” reminds us of one thing that hasn't changed. 

Racial attitudes exist within us all. Bigotry festers in the places between what we feel, and what we're told we're supposed to feel.

You know, in the gray area.