At the start of Ira Sachs’s Passages, a Brit, a German, and a Frenchwoman walk into a bar in Paris. It sounds like the set-up to a corny old joke from the ‘50s, and it’s a joke that Sachs finds a series of cuttingly funny punchlines to in this tale of artists, affairs, sexual liberation, and hurt feelings. After the misfire of Frankie in 2019, Passages marks a real return to form for Sachs, a sexy and amusing and very European film full of brilliantly written characters whose frustrating flaws become fertile ground for the sort of grown up relationship drama that feels so rare in English-language films these days.
The Brit and the German are married couple Martin (Ben Whishaw), the boss at a printing firm, and Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a profoundly self-involved film director. After Martin momentarily spurns Tomas at the wrap party for Tomas’s latest film (entitled, in what feels like a self-critical touch from Sachs, Passages), Tomas’s bruised ego and rampant horniness throw him into the arms of gorgeous French schoolteacher Agathe (Adele Exarchopoulos). Before we’ve even really had time to get our bearings (Passages runs at a brisk 90 minutes), Tomas and Agathe have started an affair, and everyone involved’s lives start slowly imploding.
Though Martin and Agathe are by no means given short shrift, the structure of Sachs’s story makes Tomas our lead almost by default, and Rogowski delivers another firecracker performance as a fastidious and arrogant artist who is compelling but is also, in no uncertain terms, a complete prick. Always chasing the next quick hit of emotional validation, whether that’s through conversation, art, or sex, Tomas is consistently baffled by the fact that his needs aren’t the things the world revolves around. It’s a trait that could prove just offputting, but Sachs makes the man make such relentless bad decisions that it instead becomes very funny, even as Martin and Agathe are tortured by Tomas’s flightiness.
This balance between fun and misery is where Passages makes its home in almost every aspect of its production, from Sachs’s sharp writing and direction – there’s a brilliantly executed scene in which Tomas demands Martin be happy for him and Agathe whilst Rogowski’s frame obscures Whishaw’s entirely – right down to the costuming. Everyone gets a series of outfits that are undeniably stylish but also really rather funny, the characters always revealing just a little too much of their inner lives through their clothing.
Passages isn’t as emotionally affective as Love is Strange or Little Men, but it crackles with a different sort of energy, particularly in the frank and urgent sex scenes. Sachs and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias have managed to create three characters here who are all the good kind of irritating, the kind of people you feel you could almost speak to through the screen to tell them to get their acts together. It’s an impressive trick, made more so by the multilingual demands of the setting, and Rogowski, Whishaw, and Exarchopoulos latch on to this sharp and witty writing with equally incisive performances. As the first notable post-summer release, Passages (whether it wants to or not) marks the starting gun of awards season and, though it’s highly unlikely to get any gongs itself, it sets a good bar for 2023’s real prestige offerings.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 