‘Passages’ - Sundance
Sundance darling, Ira Sachs, returns to the festival with a raw, queer drama that brutally paints an honest portrait of a self-involved artist sabotaging his life with a destructive love triangle.
Tomas is introduced while on the set of his latest movie, directing with aggressive demands for his actors to do exactly what he says as he treats them like play pieces instead of actual humans. He acts like a director in his own life, but his two play pieces are not actors but his soft-spoken artist husband of 15 years, Martin, and Agathe, a teacher he meets at a club with Martin. Tomas and Martin are exact opposites but the many years spent together have equipped them to handle each other’s needs and flaws. This is not Tomas’s first time being with a woman, but in this fiery moment with Agathe, something feels different and it is an opportunity he must take advantage of.
Even though he ropes two people into his love triangle, Tomas is concerned with himself and does what he needs to to get the exact setup he wants from each partner. Sachs uses Tomas for the audience to observe how someone with a destructive personality can affect a relationship with a shared history that quickly ending it will not mean it is closed and over. Tomas being a celebrity adds another layer to this story by using how his career brings a sense of entitlement to how he navigates the world he lives in. When he is on set and something doesn’t go his way he has the safety of being able to do another take, but in real life, his mistakes lead him to defeat himself. He wields self-sabotage on top of his childlike attitude that drives others to stay clear of him.
While Sachs perfectly lays out all three points of view in this relationship; he is on the side of Martin, who has endured the humiliation of being with Tomas. Sachs is very empathetic towards Agathe’s situation as she is a young woman who got caught up in the fame of Tomas and the appeal of seducing a gay man. She can see a future for a relationship with him and falls under his spell that he wants the same things, but sadly she is being manipulated by the egomaniac director. Even though Tomas can be insufferable, Franz Rogowski brings a sense of humanity to the role that offsets his cruelty with humility that shows a deep insecurity dwelling in the character. Tomas aspires to be with someone but he retracts once they catch on to who he is and that is his flaw. Watching the contrast between Rogowski’s chaotic queer and Ben Whishaw’s bare Martin who is the sexiest he has ever been makes them a compelling couple. With a fair treatment of all three lovers that show them as complex humans, it is left up to the audience to figure out who they best identify within the given circumstance.
Sachs opts out of high-octane screaming matches for quiet moments between the throuple. His delicate, French aesthetic direction allows for the film to feel grounded and raw which allows his cast of performers to take in all the intense emotions and just breathe. Audiences are put directly in the middle of the love triangle as they get to almost eavesdrop on the intimate moments shared between lovers almost feeling a bit voyeuristic. Each actor naturally becomes the character they are portraying and the story has a bit of a mess to it that enhances the realism beneath the surface. Tomas's narcissism puts the story on a predictable path as both men find new lovers, Tomas thinks that Agathe is what he has been searching for but the idea of Martin replacing him sets him back on course. Sachs beautifully directs passion between his two male leads in a very lengthy sex scene that communicates their relationship perfectly.
Sachs shatters any Hollywood happy-ending expectations and positions Tomas in a state of melancholy as his selfish actions work against him. While starting the film off in an environment where he has full control of everything around him, in the end, Tomas finds himself in a situation that he has no control over due to his overconfidence and manipulation. Passages uses its love triangle as a microscopic lens to examine attraction, intimacy, and the unintentional pain that people can cause to their loved ones that feels truthful and will leave a scar.