After his Cannes misfire Frankie in 2021, writer-director Ira Sachs has made a compelling return to form at Sundance with his cruelly well-observed drama Passages. It’s a bit of a bland title and one that never really pays off but its subject matter is far more compelling, a messy little movie about a specifically awful brand of narcissist who will be frighteningly familiar to many of us who have known him and even more so to those who might well be him.
Transit’s Franz Rogowski plays self-obsessed film director Tomas, married to artist Martin (Ben Whishaw), but forever curious for more. That more arrives in the shape of Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a teacher he meets at a bar before finding himself in her bedroom. He’s brazenly proud when recounting the tale back at home but when lust turns to love, or at least his concept of it, whatever conflicted openness Martin might have previously had soon curdles into distaste.
