Netflix has another great story on their hands and we will definitely be talking about it when it comes out in a couple of weeks.
Rebecca Hall has made her directorial debut with Passing, a novel from a few years ago about two mixed girls who were friends as children and become reacquainted as adults. Tessa Thompson’s character still identifies as Black, while Ruth Negga is passing as white and is married to a racist.
I love it. I’m all in. I’m a little skeptical of a British white woman tackling a novel about Black people in America in 1929, but at the heart, I think Passing will be more of a character study than a treatise on race. And since it needs nuanced acting to pull it off, I’m ready to suspend belief for two hours and go with Ruth Negga being able to pass, because obviously she could not, but she’s a fantastic actress.
When I think of women who would be considered colored in 1929 if people knew her parentage but have the phenotype to pass for white with a little makeup and possibly a peroxide blonde hairdo, Ruth Negga isn’t on the list. Meghan Markle is.
Troian Bellisario would absolutely pass, even without going blonde.
Most people don’t realize Halsey has any Black heritage at all.
Sofia Richie barely has a trace of Lionel in her on first glance.
And Mariah wouldn’t have been nearly as big right out the gate if she hadn’t been assumed to be the white Whitney Houston.
But that’s the thing about movies. If the actor is right, we forget what they look like until the movie is over. The trailer is only two minutes, but if we just acknowledge now that nobody would assume this was a white woman, we can all go ahead and get over it so we can settle into the performance when the time comes. Passing has Oscar-bait written all over it.
Edit 5:59pm.
I was so focused on Ruth Negga not being able to pass that I completely forgot Rebecca Hall is the daughter of a mixed-race opera singer. Rebecca herself would’ve been considered colored in 1929 and would’ve been a much better person for the role.
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