Passages

As you see from the trailer a gay man in a gay marriage has sex with a woman. Don't think you'll find out why. You won't. His gay husband is OK with that. Don't know why. He just seems to sleep with one or the other as he pleases and nobody seems to object. There is almost no pressure on him to choose between them so don't expect any drama. I'm not telling you the ending but it's as calm as the rest of the film. Is he in love with either of them? Don't know. So I am giving it a 6. It's not bad but it doesn't go anywhere and doesn't answer any questions about the characters. Given the potential material it's very disappointing.

This movie's faint appeal as a post-modern take on a love triangle seems exhausted by the implausible image, featured in many promotional cards, of Franz Rogowski's sneering Tomas jazz-snuggling up to Adèle Exarchopoulos' Agathe on a dance floor. Tantalizing, but no, the film does not explain how this pair makes any chemical, emotional, or even symbolic sense. Franz Rogowski has a convincing restraint and charisma as an outsider in films like "In den Gängen" or "Transit," but here, cast in a sexual melodrama (between characters Tomas, Martin, and Agathe) as a self-obsessed bourgeois, he acts as if he were a guy who manages a cable company by day and was hired for this film because of his eyebrows. That said, Rogowski has little in the script to work with: why any character should care about this selfish oaf is head-ache-making opaque. The script tempts Rogowski into an egotistical flatness, his voice a monotonous whine, whose musical equivalent is a beginner's huffing atonally on a saxophone, alone. The character knows no boundaries. Part demon-child, part mindless fungus, he one minute halts ordinary conversations imperiously and the next shows up uninvited (opening doors himself), babbling needy demands in somebody's dwelling or workplace. Aiming for the top edge of the goal, the filmmakers instead deliver Tomas as a kind of compound of all the silly-shirt, night-scene poseurs in the history of Saturday Night Live, going back to Dan Ackroyd's "wild and crazy guy," Bill Hader's Stefon, and the Roxbury Guys of Ferrell and Kattan. However, Tomas's nylon tank and midriff-baring macrame-top collection beats all of these SNL figures in a race to "ridiculous." We are supposed to believe that a woman, played by Adèle Exarchopoulos, who recalls Monica Vitti and Anna Karina in her voluptuous elegance, toughness, and vulnerability, is obsessed with a sniveling, narcissistic twit, a dying fire-pit of acrid banalities. Unsurprisingly, after about five minutes of film time, Exarchopoulos resonates an odd fatigue incompatible with Agathe's allegedly incandescent fascination with Tomas, and she betrays a glowing concern that the actress, not the character, is in a bad dream: this movie. Ben Whishaw as Martin is such a maestro that he is the only one of the three (in other work excellent) principal actors who can bring himself fully to the script with a believable, developing, pained realization, but the film at large is so full of abrupt, nonsensical leaps of mood and commitment that the whole exercise could be a workshop in which the players were challenged to vitalize premises that make scant sense. Another film that much more convincingly allows the wonderful Adèle Exarchopoulos to play on a plane of "nothing left to lose" is Rien à foutre (2021).

More promise than execution, "Passages" tackles twentysomethings navigating gender fluid sexuality with Paris as the backdrop. Welcome to the Tomas, Martin and Agathe dance. Narcissist and disagreeable German film director, Tomas is the unfortunate rotten core here. His marriage to Martin is disrupted by a purely sexual tryst with fetching schoolteacher Agathe, and Tomas can't wait to gush about his walk on the straight side to his husband. Things don't go well.

An interesting premise for sure, but one that plays out sloppily, without any character development to speak of, unless Tomas' deplorable indifference counts. An ugly persona, with an appearance to match - a patchy beard, gaunt features, a snaky lisp and a horrific wardrobe (which ironically, is getting kudos from GQ) - it's a bit of a puzzle as to his alure. Surprisingly, he's quite dull to boot, which makes for an odd protagonist: a difficult one to hate, or care for.

"Passages" takes stabs at the French New Wave, dishing up randy youth moving aimlessly through Paris to a jazzy backdrop, but with the exception of a lovely, film-closing evening bike ride, doesn't hit the mark. Without style, the absence of substance dominates this lackluster experience.

• hipCRANK.

"Passages" is a master class in building a film around an unlikable character.

Franz Rogowski gives a commanding performance full of charisma and sex appeal as a sexually fluid narcissist who can't stand to let anyone around him be happy without him (or even really with him, for that matter). Viewed with a live audience, the movie becomes almost something of a comedy, and it was a hoot hearing the people in the theater with me reacting with more and more vocal disbelief at just what a jerk this main character could be. It's a morbidly fascinating character study -- it's almost like watching a day in the life of a sociopath.

I should have been exasperated with this character and movie and probably would have been if it had been handled differently. But as is, with Ira Sachs's excellent direction and the film's terrific acting, it's instead one of the best movies I've seen so far this year.

Grade: A.

"Tomas" (Franz Rogowski) and husband "Martin" (Ben Whishaw) find their marriage severley tested when the former man starts to fall for "Agathe" (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and that passion drives "Martin" into the arms of "Amad" (Erwan Kepoa Falé). What now ensues is, frankly, a rather dull introspective of characters that didn't really leap off the screen at me. Rogowski can be a charismatic actor, but here he offers us a rather unremarkable characterisation of a horny man who wants to have his cake and eat it. Whishaw is, routinely these days on screen, just a bit weedy and presents another weakly constructed individual who seems content not to fight for the man he's supposed to love. It all just rolls along without really catching fire, it's over-scripted and though it may well have a visual authenticity to it, it's all just a bit so what? The production and pacing all contribute to the general ennui of the film and to be honest, I was just a bit disappointed with this whole thing. I saw it at the cinema this week, but I suspect even the most ardent fans of these three can wait for a television screening.