Celebrated filmmaker Ira Sachs (LOVE IS STRANGE) makes a breathtaking return with PASSAGES, a fresh, honest and brutally funny take on messy, modern relationships, starring Franz Rogowski (GREAT FREEDOM), Ben Whishaw (WOMEN TALKING), and Adèle Exarchopoulos (BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR). Set in Paris, this seductive drama tells the story of Tomas (Rogowski) and Martin (Whishaw), a gay couple whose marriage is thrown into crisis when Tomas begins a passionate affair with Agathe (Exarchopoulos), a younger woman he meets after completing his latest film. Perceptive, intimate and unashamedly sexy, PASSAGES sees Sachs bridge his usually tender style with a uniquely European sensibility, providing an insightful and authentic take on the complexities, contradictions and cruelties of love and desire.
“Yes, PASSAGES is impossibly sensual, but there is a lingering sadness in the primal urges that have Martin and Agathe welcoming Tomas into the safety of their beds time and time again, their bodies softly surrendering to the ravenous passion that harbours unprocessed anger. Alas, pleasure proves a flimsy Band-Aid, and it is precisely in the painful removal of this bandage that Sachs’ film finds its greatest laurel: a raw, heartbreaking understanding of how cruelty can bitterly bite away at beauty.” —Rafaela Sales Ross, We Love Cinema
“By making a man like Tomas the axis of such an exploration, Sachs only heightens the problem, giving PASSAGES an unruly energy at its center that defies what might, to some eyes, look like a more straightforward, well-made French romantic drama. As such a drama, PASSAGES more than satisfies.” —K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone