Sundance 2021: 20 Films You Need To Know About
18. Passing
Rebecca Hall's directorial debut is nothing if not an ambitious first film, adapting Nella Larsen's seminal 1929 novel about a pair of mixed-race childhood friends reconnecting in adulthood, where one (Ruth Negga) assumes a strictly white identity in the pursuit of a "better" life.
Though Hall's film is unwieldy and slow-moving at times, it's also one of Sundance's most daring and inventive projects, engaging with notions of identity in a way audiences are unlikely to be familiar with.
Between its gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and a storming pair of performances from Negga and Tessa Thompson, don't be surprised if Passing remains a cinematic conversation piece by year's end.
Passing will be distributed by Netflix.