“Passing” stars Tessa Thompson, Academy Award-nominee Ruth Negga, André Holland and Alexander Skarsgård, and is written and directed by Rebecca Hall.
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 color 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.