A gay marriage is disrupted by a heterosexual affair in Passages, which plays this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival after premiering in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. Writer-director Ira Sachs (Love is Strange, Keep the Lights On) has a keen sense for the human flaws at the center of his story, which helps elevate this one despite a somewhat familiar premise.

A magnetic central performance by Franz Rogowski as a deeply-flawed protagonist helps make Passages an engaging journey throughout. Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos offer more-than solid support, though their characters aren’t as richly detailed as their dominant co-star.

Passages stars Rogowski as Paris-based film director Tomas, who opens the film by lambasting an actor for his unnatural walk down a flight of stairs on the set of his latest film. He speaks freely without consideration for how it will land on the ears of those who he is talking to, something that bleeds over from his professional work and into his personal life.

Tomas is in a long-term relationship with husband Martin (Whishaw), but a strikes up something with production assistant Agathe (Exarchopoulos) during the wrap party for his film. This sets the narrative for Passages into motion: as Tomas struggles to come to terms with his own desires, the characters around him forge their own paths through the chaos he has sewn.

It’s a testament to Rogowski’s performance, and a nuanced portrayal of Tomas from Sachs and co-writers Arlette Langmann and Mauricio Zacharias, that we can empathize with this deeply flawed character. Tomas is an unforgiving narcissist, but his struggle feels real, and identifiable.

A dinner with Agathe’s parents (played by Olivier Rabourdin and Caroline Chaniolleau) is especially incisive. Clearly not the long-term partner they envision for their daughter, mom pokes and prods at Tomas about his homosexual past until he boils over.

While Passages relies on the antics of Tomas to drive its story, equal weight is given to the study of Martin and Agathe. Both are sympathetic but level-headed characters who struggle with the decisions made by Tomas just as much as he does, and ultimately pay a price for their compassion.

And while Rogowski’s uninhibited performance is what demands our attention throughout most of the movie, it’s a quiet, sober scene between Exarchopoulos and Whishaw towards the end that leaves Passages‘ biggest mark. More than Tomas himself, these are the people that have to deal with the situation he has created.

Throughout each of his previous movies, director Sachs has displayed a tender but unshielded look at complex and unconventional relationships. Passages is more raw and explicit than some of his earlier films, and achieves the same kind of incisive insight into a world we might not be familiar with, but emotions we know all too well.

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