Sometimes, there’s just nothing like watching bad people make bad decisions in cinema. Much of the landscape consists of those sorts of stories and “Passages”, the latest film from French director/writer Ira Sachs (“Love is Strange,” “Little Men”) and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias (“Love is Strange,” “Little Men”) is no different. It certainly won’t be for everyone, buts it's an authentically told tale, nevertheless.
The film follows Tomas, played by Franz Rogowski (“Freaks Out,” “Happy End”), a filmmaker who decides to end his relationship with his longtime partner Martin, played by Ben Wishaw (“Paddington,” “Mary Poppins Returns”), after a fling with a young woman at a nightclub, Agathe, played by Adèle Exarchopoulos (“Blue is the Warmest Colour,” “The Five Devils”). He then begins to date Agathe, with the film slowly showcasing his selfishness, infidelity, and breakdown of both relationships.
It’s a very simple film, the definition of the kind of old-school “movies about talking” kind of production that used to dominate the industry in the 70s, 80s, and 90s., and it works well in that regard. The script from Sachs and Zacharias is punchy and features numerous moments of tension due to Tomas’s general rudeness and selfish nature. It becomes a minefield later in the film as he dances around trying to keep everything running smoothly, but as he becomes increasingly more toxic, the film begins to become increasingly more tedious.
Rogowski is great, and Wishaw and Exarchopoulos are also fantastic, with the trio playing perfectly against each other. Tomas has a completely different depending on if he’s with Agathe or Martin, and the ebb and flow of the trio’s performances helps to craft a fascinating tale of relationships as they build and crumble.
Which is a shame then that the film simply becomes a more rote experience as it continues. It's not that the quality of the writing or performances change, that the beauty of the cinematography from Josée Deshaies (“House of Tolerance,” “Saint Laurent”) gets any less understated and gorgeous. But as the film goes on, Tomas’s escapades become less entertaining, and more tedious, eventually souring the experience. It turns from being a fun and toxic tale of a self-centered ass to a still toxic but far more dower tale of a man who seems more pathetic as the runtime goes on.
It can, of course, be argued that the point of the film is that it's a dower, toxic experience, and while that may be the case, there are certainly plenty of films like it that don’t end up dragging by the end. It’s not an issue of pacing, as the entire film has rather wonky pacing, stuttering and stopping at a seemingly random pace. It adds to the exhausting feeling of the entire experience by the end of things, arguably mirroring Agathe and Martin’s experiences with Tomas himself.
“Passages” is certainly a well-made film full of people doing an excellent job with a biting script and material. It’s not acid-tongued so much as built entirely around a person that most people would rather simply not interact with shortly after meeting. This results in a film that’s excellent on a craft level, but emotionally becomes quite exhausting, pulling itself across the finish line of Tomas’s incredibly pathetic journey. 3/5
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