DLers, watch the movie Passages ft. Ben Whishaw

I saw it today. Terrific film. I was a big fan of one of the director’s previous films, Keep the Lights On.

do they show cock

I loved his movie from the 90s, The Delta.

Saw it today. Wonderful but uncomfortable film with three remarkable performances from the leads. Some of the relationship dynamics hit too close to home. IMHO, Ira Sachs’s best film.

I didn't know the film is NC-17 until I bought my ticket. Strange that the thrusting action alone in the gay sex scene must have been what bumped it out of R territory; you don't see either of the faces of the actors and somehow to me at least, this makes it more chaste. You don't see the face of the main actor in the other sex scene and that's definitely a statement by the director about this character.

The acting is excellent but the ending needed to be stronger. The director was very much vibing French new-wave and Pialat films like "LouLou". The thing about "LouLou" is that both the main characters were moths to each other's flame. In "Passages" the Franz Rogowski character is a damaged narcissistic monster and the other two are basically normal types.

This is one of those Euro movies that are very hip, stylish and the production design and music cues are impossibly intelligent and cool (and makes me envious). Adele E. must be the coolest third grade teacher ever.

The fact that everyone has subtitles in the trailer was a huge red flag for me, they were clearly trying to mask Franz's horrific diction when he's speaking in English. Loved him in Great Freedom, though. I also just cannot with bisexual drama in general, so I probably won't see this.

R5 I was telling a friend everything was so impossibly French and sexy. Sexy people, sexy apartments, sexy food! I enjoyed it but could have had more. The ending was also so very French.

[quote]A gay couple's marriage is thrown into crisis when one of them impulsively begins a passionate affair with a young woman.

Yeah no thank you

I liked it, didn’t love it. Ben is almost always great to watch but this other guy, Franz, takes some getting used to.

So...it's like a porn scene with less attractive people that's NOT free to watch. Gotcha.

[quote]Adele E. must be the coolest third grade teacher ever.

Isn't that also her job in "Blue is the Warmest Color"?

Is this streaming yet? I can't find it.

I don't think so, as it is still playing in some theaters. (Or at least one—IFC Center.)

Ben Whishaw as a top? I guess he's a better actor than I thought.

I've never been able to sit through an Ira Sachs film. He's consistently terrible and has been for 25 years.

[quote]they were clearly trying to mask Franz's horrific diction when he's speaking in English. Loved him in Great Freedom, though. I also just cannot with bisexual drama in general, so I probably won't see this.

Franz's accent was indeed a bit strange, but it worked for the character. He was indeed fantastic in Great Freedom, which would make a great double-feature with this film.

Let me say "indeed" again—indeed.

I thought it was completely pretentious and stupid. The gay sex scene was the only good part. Stream it and fast-forward to that scene.

The German lead was very off-putting to me. Weird speech impediment and looked off. Not hot at all. You have to watch his dumb ass fuck around with a French woman for most of the movie.

Wishaw is the only appealing person in the film.

But to each their own. Glad some of you enjoyed it 😂

Wow. This is so deeply contrived.

Is this a comedy?

My friend and I (and the group of women behind us) kept laughing outloud, but no - it’s not supposed to be funny.

One funny scene is after bottoming for his British husband, the main character shows up at his French girlfriend’s apartment to meet her parents and he’s wearing a tiny mesh crop top and MARYing up a storm while they stare at him in horror. But the girlfriend tells them to give him a chance, she loves him, etc.

But no - not a comedy.

The comedy/absurdity in that scene is almost certainly intentional.

Not even "almost" r22 -- it's clearly comedic. r21 just needs things spoon-fed. This is a very funny movie, while also being dramatic and weird and aggressively unlikable. Like the characters. A movie like this, with complicated messy pieces of shit as its leads, is so much more interesting to me than 95% of the movies that get made.

I thought it was beyond pretentious. Why do all gay movies come off as either insanely unfunny, or trying too, too hard to be "serious'?

Loved it. A movie made for people who think and feel. Saw it last month it's still resonating with me.

r23, we can disagree on the film Mary. It doesn't mean I require "spoon-feeding."

I went to a screening where Ira Sachs did a Q&A after. He was pretentious and very serious about the film. That scene I described had elements of absurdity - yes. Intentionally funny? No.

Sachs made a number of eye-rolling statements - the one that I remember is that he finds a real beauty in "men behaving badly."

This is streaming now on MUBI, R12.

Agree with R26. I think Sachs has gone on record as saying it’s not intentionally comic, but…

The scene with the parents was the best scene in the film, by far. The mother, Edith, was the only character I could identify with.

The sex scene was gross with that guy’s dirty feet. Barf.

This is a film that probably seems deep to twentysomethings but to more mature viewers, well, like myself, it just made me guffaw a couple of times. None of these characters were at all believable, they were all so one-dimensional. Barely one dimensional.

A bit like last year’s The Worst Person in the World, a far better film, but also a bit inconsequential for mature audiences. What seems earth-shattering in your 20s is less so when measured against actually life experience. Watching people kind of “play” at life isn’t that interesting.

R29 I am a really old fart (over 70) and I loved both The Worst Person in the World and Passages. The lead in TWPIW was not, in fact, the worst... I thought she was sympathetic. The lead in Passages was most assuredly a horrid narcissist. The art direction and shot set up were constantly interesting to me... so many characters talking when all we see is the back of their heads. Sachs has always had weird set pieces... he may be an acquired taste, but he is an American auteur fer shure and it's fun to see French new wave filtered through an American modern director, the Sundance Kid.

Surprised this hasn't engendered more discussion on DL. Two observations:

1. Rogowski's wardrobe for the movie was brilliant. It was so uber-fashionable and laughable... and was part of the character development, completely matching the toxic narcissism of this guy. Parisian fag apotheosis in no good way.

2. The main sex scene (there are several) - Whishaw topping Rogowski so explicitly, getting up in there deep and hard to hit Rogowski's happy spot, and Rogowski just so hungry to get plowed hard... and Sach's decision to have it go on so long... was key to the plot. He was never going to stay with the woman because he was so hungry for The Dick (even as other details seemed to show that Whishaw was the usual bottom). It was no beautiful (yeah, yeah, the dirty feet up in the air), but it was brilliant non-verbal characterization of a truly horrible person.

One of the worst disappointments of 2023, along with Past Lives. The latter was just okay – I was way overhyped for it – but this movie was outright garbage. It's just a shitty play with cringe dialogue, delivered mumblingly by two ESL actors with bad diction. Zero depth to the main character, he's just an asshole.

Whishaw and Rogowski deserve better.

R31 I think it's got a 97 on Rotten Tomatoes, so yours is clearly a unique opinion. The way English barely supported important communication between the French and German characters was spot on... at least as I've observed it.

Sachs is, likely, an acquired or rare taste. Like most French new wave directors and lineage.