For her directorial debut, Rebecca Hall adapts Nella Larsen's
1929 novel Passing.
The film stars Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson as two
African-American childhood friends who can pass for white but choose to live
on different sides of the colour line. When they're reunited as adults, the
white-passing Clare (Negga) upends the life of Irene (Thompson).
Bill Camp, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy and
Alexander Skarsgard also star.
Passing is in UK/ROI cinemas from October 29th and on Netflix
from November 10th.
Check out the trailer and poster below.
The official synopsis reads:
Adapted from the celebrated 1929 novel of the same name by Nella Larsen, PASSING tells the story of two Black women, Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) and Clare Kendry (Academy Award nominee Ruth Negga), who can “pass” as white but choose to live on opposite sides of the colour line during the height of the Harlem Renaissance in late 1920s New York. After a chance encounter reunites the former childhood friends one summer afternoon, Irene reluctantly allows Clare into her home, where she ingratiates herself to Irene’s husband (André Holland) and family, and soon her larger social circle as well. As their lives become more deeply intertwined, Irene finds her once-steady existence upended by Clare, and PASSING becomes a riveting examination of obsession, repression and the lies people tell themselves and others to protect their carefully constructed realities.
