Passing's Formal Choices Were Sometimes Overshadowed by Rebecca Hall's Background
Rebecca Hall's debut feature adapts Nella Larsen's 1929 Harlem Renaissance novel, a charged re-encounter between two women of colour—Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga—who were childhood friends and whose paths diverged in 1920s New York.
When Passing was released, the BFI notes, press and promotion put so much weight on Hall's racial background and family history—effectively establishing her personal investment in, and right to tell, the story—that the film's formal strategies and aesthetics were sometimes overlooked. The BFI's case is that Hall's adaptation succeeds in immersing the viewer in an intoxicating but tension-filled world. It is a familiar critical trap: biography becomes the headline, and craft becomes the footnote.
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Biography can be a useful way into a film, but it is a poor substitute for watching how the thing is built.
The background wasn't irrelevant, though. The promotional emphasis on Hall's family history was used to establish her personal investment and right to tell the story; the trouble starts when that becomes the only frame.