Written by: Mauricio Zacharias, Ira Sachs, Arlette Langmann
Starring: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Erwan Kepoa Falé
Rating: [3.5/5]
Messy individuals have a way to bring their disorder in the lives of others because they can lure them in before those poor victims know it they have sucked them into all the nonsense. Even with all the mess involved, these individuals manage to have this pull that Passages seeks to tease out through a lead character that does nothing other than what he wants and does not care who gets hurt in the process.
Film director Tomas (Franz Rogowski) has just completed his latest film and celebrates by dancing with a young teacher named Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) after his husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw) is not in the mood. Following this party, Tomas seeks out Agathe and begins an affair with her, which causes plenty of issues with Martin.
A tale of an unfettered quest for carnal pleasure and emotional domination, Passages relies heavily on the appeal of Tomas as someone people would be willing to throw it all away for. He represents someone who will do whatever he wants and simply does not care who he leaves in his wake. Going from person to person not only seducing them but also becoming someone they are willing to forgive whenever he breaks into his next indiscretion. Franz Rogowski, for all of his talent, does not evoke that type of energy nor does his character but the man is captivating to watch. The way he saunters around not caring about the feelings of others and simply trying to take what will provide him with the most pleasure truly impresses, which ultimately saves this film.
For as risqué and provocative as this film proves to be, it gets quite repetitive, which is what ultimately kept me from fully loving Passages to the degree Ira Sachs wanted me to. After a while this film becomes this seesaw where Tomas makes love to Martin and Agathe, hurts them, and then comes crawling back to whomever laid next in his path for sexual gratification. It never quite becomes anything much more intriguing than that and I understand what it sought to accomplish with the messy relationships, but when the final credits arrive and Tomas reaches a conclusion that probably makes sense considering his actions, it just does not leave as much of an impact as I would have wanted. Dare I say, after a while it gets a bit old that only begins to make me question the decision-making of these other characters. This ultimately has me holding back from giving too much adulation to this film because in its concept it makes for something wholly intriguing but its execution proves ever so slightly stale.
As mentioned before, Franz Rogowski puts in quite the performance here as Tomas in his general demeanor and complete laissez-faire approach to his life. This role presents the loosest role I have seen from Rogowski and I love that he just went for it. In addition to him, rounding out the rest of this love triangle we have the ever-lovable Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos. Both of them must play as the victims in the game of Tomas and Whishaw unexpectedly plays as the heart and soul of the story. His character, Martin, gave his all to Tomas through the covenant of marriage and placing supreme trust in him only to continually be pushed aside when the latest whim of the messy Tomas heavily impacted him. Whishaw always knows how to play such a delicate character, which makes those instances where he weeps from the internal anguish it causes for him all the more infuriating.
While not firmly realizing its full potential within its narrative, Passages still remains a captivating experience. We have two characters in Martin and Agathe caught in the web of someone as uncaring and dangerous as Tomas and seeing the pain he brings them never gets better. Through this story Franz Rogowski shows out as messy and wicked as he can be in displaying what makes Tomas so weirdly captivating and someone who could weave a web this destructive. There remains plenty to enjoy in what this film has to offer, even if I did not necessarily love its repetitiveness and lack of actual punctuation by the time we reach the finale.
Films with Josh 
