Rebecca Hall’s Passing is an exceptional film, filled with incredible performances from the entire cast – especially Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. The black-and-white photography is luminous, and the use of light and shadow helps accentuate the different worlds our two protagonists move through and whether they are passing or not. The use of mirrors throughout opens up the spaces and reflects back the ways characters see themselves within a racist, oppressive society obsessed with surface appearance. And yet, the heavy reliance on point of view shots – often with limited vision, blurry, or obscured and altered – highlights how impossible it is to rely solely on our own perceptions and interpretations of a situation. This is a film that would all-too-easily become an easy sermon or message film, but Hall wisely allows the characters to remain complicated and nuanced, with class distinctions within the Black community and white benefactors adding additional layers of hierarchy to the relationships and obscuring motivations. Portions of the film are shot to look like a missing film from the late ‘20s or early ‘30s, a missing melodrama or proto-noir about the lives of Black women, and you can’t help but reflect on the stories and films from that period that we’re missing because of the voices silenced due to racism. This is a fantastic film, a nuanced and beautifully crafted work.