PASSAGES - Mark Reviews Movies

Passages, Mubi

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | August 3, 2023

Everything we see and hear about and from Tomas (Franz Rogowski) tells us everything we need to know about the man. He's the central character of Passages, a discomforting character study from co-writer/director Ira Sachs, and the man is convinced that he is the center, not only of his own life, but of the lives of anyone who gets close to him.

Watching this man charm, lie, and manipulate his way through a love triangle, without any regard for the emotional wreckage he might leave behind, is disturbing, to be sure. Because Sachs and co-screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias do see the ruins of Tomas' actions, we at least have some notions of decency to attach ourselves to in this story.

Besides that, though, it is strangely compelling to learn about the full extent of Tomas' egocentrism, narcissism, and complete disregard for the feelings of those he claims to love. At the start, he's presented as a tough, exacting movie director, scolding an actor on set for the performer's inability to enter a room to the director's particular standards. We quickly learn this isn't just his professional attitude, and it only makes too much sense that a man who wants to control so much about his own life would find a career in being able to tell others exactly what to do.

In his personal life, Paris-based Tomas is currently married to Martin (Ben Whishaw), a kind and soft-spoken man, and their first interaction together, at a bar where the end-of-shoot party is being held, is Tomas telling his husband to talk to some people and, generally, not to look so miserable. It's a party, after all, and one that's for him, so how does it look for him if Martin isn't even pretending to have a good time? Everything is about Tomas, and if it isn't at any given moment, it had better start to be quickly.

The other point of the quickly developed romantic triangle is Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a teacher who just happens to be at the bar that night and is in the middle of a messy break-up with a jealous guy. It's she and Martin who start talking, actually, but Tomas steps into the conversation, insists the three of them dance, and is left alone with Agathe when Martin finally decides it's time to go home to the apartment the couple share. Tomas returns to her place, and after some loaded stares, the two make their way to her bedroom.

Returning home, Tomas initially lies to a silent Martin, saying that he spent the night at a crewmember's apartment, but then, he reveals the truth—or, at least, the truth as he believes it to be or thinks would benefit him now and in the long run. He admits to having sex with Agathe, proclaiming that he felt something he hasn't felt in a long time, and asks Martin if he'd like to hear about the experience.

One could look at this as the frank honesty of loving relationship, perhaps, but as soon as Tomas' pattern of behavior emerges through the rest of this story, it becomes painfully clear that he simply wasn't getting the attention he wanted/needed from his husband in the moment. With his admission, Tomas does have Martin's attention. Is it enough for Tomas, though?

Behind Martin's back, he continues the affair with Agathe, who finds Tomas charming and affectionate. In a simpler approach to this material, perhaps, the story would follow our protagonist as he attempts to balance his marriage and this affair in secret, but the deceit doesn't last long. Soon enough, Tomas is moving things from his shared apartment with Martin to Agathe's place, promising her that it won't be temporary while trying to convince Martin that things between them should just go on as usual.

The key difference between drama and melodrama is a matter of focus—either on characters, in the case of the former, or situations, when it comes to the latter. The reason this film works so well is because Sachs and Zacharias take what seems to be a melodramatic scenario—a married man scheming his way between two lovers—and put the focus squarely on Tomas' nature.

At one point, the man sobs about how unhappy he is, and that very well is probably the case on a deeper level than we're allowed to see (There's a seemingly throwaway discussion about him having family in his home country of Germany, but after witnessing all of his actions here, one starts to wonder if they're estranged and if Tomas' pattern contributed to that). His primary source of unhappiness, though, appears to come from him not getting what he wants at any given moment.

Rogowski is very good and very unsettling in the role, as a man who probably has convinced himself that he is capable of love and wants what's best for others, and the key to the success of the performance is that we never suspect Tomas of putting on an act. He's as genuine as he can be, which means he isn't aware of how cruel he can be, as well. Whishaw and Exarchopoulos, meanwhile, play characters who are sincere, in terms of loving this man, being conflicted about what they think they know of Tomas and what they see from him, and suffering after being convinced by his insistence and emotional pleas. Both of them do more with these roles than the screenplay, which is so fixated on Tomas, offers the characters.

Passages presents us with a character we'd probably rather not get to know. The process of him revealing who he is over the course of this thorny tale, though, is still fascinating.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products