Thomas (Franz Rogowski) is a movie director who lives with his husband Martin (Ben Winshaw).
One day, Thomas initiates an affair with a young woman Agathe (Adéle Exarchopoulos).
As this new relationship progresses, Thomas seems to have no regard for how his actions affect others.
It is only a matter of time before his luck runs out…
Not a horror movie, but Passages contains a character so self-involved he is scarier than any boogeyman.
Most of us will never run into Jason Voorhees. But we all know Thomas (Franz Rogowski).
The film nails his character in the first scene - Thomas barks directions at actors for how their arms move when they walk downstairs, or how they hold a drink.
Thomas is only interested in externals, not the interiority of other people. He makes himself the centre of everyone else’s story.
Almost a dark comedy in how selfish Thomas is, there are points in the film where I was reminded of Uncut Gems, in how far the character is allowed to fall, without any sign of self-reflection, let alone growth.
Passage is a movie about people being so self-focussed they negate each other’s agency. This extends beyond the central character:
Ben Winshaw’s Martin, Thomas’s long-suffering husband, has started to build an idea that he will become a parent via Thomas’s infidelity, but when he tries to make peace with Exarchopoulos’s Agathe, she reveals that she has had an abortion. In his own way, he is as capable as his spouse of ignoring others.
In an interesting choice that feels deliberate, Exarchopoulos’s character is a school teacher. While it probably has something to do with the irony of her relationship with man child Thomas, it also feels like a thematic, inter-textual connection back to her breakout role in Blue is the Warmest Colour. That character was also a teacher, and on the cusp of adulthood herself. Agathe is older, wiser, more certain of who she is.
Exarchopoulos is grounded and self-aware as Thomas’s new love, and Winshaw is quietly disintegrating and resigned as Martin.
In the lead, Franz Rogowski is mesmerising. He brings a blunt, emotional illiteracy to Thomas, which is absolutely hilarious.
I have done a poor job, but Passages is very, very funny. It is also incredibly sexy, with a charge of erotic frisson between the overlapping couplings which is more tangible than any deeper feeling they might have for each other.
Having lost all control over his significant others, Thomas ends the movie detached from his former lovers, racing away on his bike. Has he learned anything? Will he deal with himself?
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