Breaking up is hard to do

I watched the new film Passages this week.  It's been released on streaming via Mubi as well as having a limited cinema release.  The main attraction for me was Ben Whishaw, but there were wonderful performances by all three main actors.  

What a sad movie though.  Passages takes its name from the film that Tomas (Franz Rogowski) is directing at the start of the film and we learn from this that he is self absorbed and insensitive, but is clearly feted as a genius.  The film takes a look at how Tomas's husband Martin (Whishaw) and new girlfriend Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) respond as he flails around causing chaos in all their lives.   

I understand there was a bit of a flurry about the sex scenes (it has been released unrated in the US and on Mubi and as X for UK cinemas), but they do provide a shortcut for understanding these relationships.  And the inclusion of that main scene is also a bit of a political act too, as it raises the question of whether a similarly graphic heterosexual sex scene would cause as much fuss. I don't really have a clear answer to that but I can see that Tomas and Martin’s long familiarity and the attachment that is so hard to break comes across beautifully in that main sex scene.  

Ben Whishaw’s performance is stand out across the whole film.  Nuanced, subtle but it’s always as clear as day what he is going through - I am definitely on his side in this breakup.  The relationship between Agathe and Tomas is also shown really clearly by their sex scenes too, but Agathe’s dilemma is highlighted best in the scene with her parents where her mum is really the only one who is a match for Tomas.  Agathe ends up taking the only option she can see open to her, which I think also gives Tomas exactly what he wants, while being the opposite of what both Agathe and Martin desire.  

The importance of the sex scenes for understanding the characters in this film made me think of Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story, where Nicole says something like 'the sex was like the talking, everything is like everything in a relationship'.  So I went straight back to watch that film again and I can confirm it still makes me cry every time.   Another great film about a break up, one of the best things about it is you can’t help but empathise with both Nicole and Charlie (wonderful performances by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johanssen).  The breakup is awful and toxic but the love isn’t.  And so we see them come out the other side and work out how to still be a family.

In Passages though, I didn't feel any sympathy for Tomas who just seemed self absorbed and completely unlikeable to me - I can see he was suffering, but he was just so toxic to those around him. It may be just me, but I think he is so awful it weakens the film a bit too.  The main tragedy is the destruction he causes in Martin and Agathe's lives before they finally see through him.  And the sadness I felt for them was partly because, unlike in Marriage Story, Tomas made sure that they couldn't still be a family.  Good film though, recommended for the great performances from all three leads but give Whishaw the awards please.

Next, something more cheerful I think!