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    Movie Review

    Passages explores complexities of unique love triangle

    Alex Bentley
    Aug 10, 2023 | 3:06 pm

    As anyone who’s ever been in a relationship can attest, sharing a life with someone can be enormously complicated. No matter how much two people have in common, there will always be things for which they don’t see eye-to-eye. Sometimes they’re minor and sometimes they’re major, and how each person handles those differences can often determine if they stay together or not.

    A fairly significant difference in mindsets is at the center of Passages. We are introduced to the couple of Tomas (Franz Rogowski) and Martin (Ben Whishaw) when they’re out at a club one night. Tomas, celebrating the end of a film he was making, wants to stay out dancing. He asks Agathe (Adèle Excharopoulos), a woman he meets at the club, to dance, which starts him down the road to having an affair with her.

    Tomas doesn’t try to hide the tryst; in fact, he tells Martin about it the next morning. But what Tomas sees as no big deal, and maybe even an addition to their relationship, Martin sees as selfish behavior bordering on betrayal. Tomas, unable to help himself, continues to bounce back-and-forth between Martin and Agathe, much to the chagrin of both of them.

    Directed by Ira Sachs and written by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, the film will likely bring up complex feelings for many viewers. Those who like to use labels will have a hard time nailing down Tomas’ sexuality, as his words and actions make him seem to fluctuate between being gay and being bisexual.

    But what never seems in doubt is Tomas’ narcissism, as he has to have a partner to define his life, but can’t find a way to put either person’s needs first. His waffling is infuriating, as he expects Martin to take him back no matter what, and for Agathe to be there when he needs another kind of release. Sachs does an excellent job of setting up the central conflict, never letting Tomas off the hook with easy answers.

    In addition to its unusual love triangle, the film is notable for its NC-17 rating, which would appear to stem from one relatively graphic sex scene between Tomas and Martin. While that scene does go farther than most mainstream movies would, it’s not that much more graphic than some straight sex scenes in other movies, making one wonder if homophobia is at play in the rating.

    Each of the three main actors do a great job of getting across the thorny nature of the plot. Whishaw is the most well-known, starring in James Bond and Paddington movies, and he brings a quiet dignity to the role. German actor Rogowski will be unfamiliar to American audiences, which helps him inhabit his role completely. French actress Excharopolous, best known for the lesbian drama Blue is the Warmest Color, is interesting casting, imbuing the role with more meaning than another actor might.

    Passages depicts a situation that’s not often seen in movies, which automatically makes it intriguing. The performances of the actors and the way Sachs handles the storytelling give the film a depth not often found, more than enough reason for film lovers to seek it out.

    ---

    Passages opens in select theaters on August 11.

    Ben Whishaw in Passages
      

    Photo courtesy of SBS Productions

    Ben Whishaw in Passages.

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    Movie Review

    Animated Disney film Elio is fun but falls short of Pixar top tier

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 19, 2025 | 1:22 pm
    Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio
    Photo courtesy of Pixar
    Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio.

    Pixar has done a ton of different things in the 28 feature films they’ve released over the past 30 years, but the one they’d never done is deal with aliens (and, no, the alien toys in Toy Story don’t count). Now they’re going where many storytellers have gone before, but in their own unique way, in the new film Elio.

    Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is a space fanatic who has recently lost both of his parents in an unnamed event. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) is now his guardian, and because she happens to be a member of the U.S. Space Force, Elio finds himself tantalizingly close to communications from space. With a desire to be abducted by aliens for both curiosity and sentimental reasons, Elio sends a message into space, hoping for some kind of response.

    He gets that and more when a ship full of multiple types of beings takes him into space, believing him to be a leader instead of a child. An encounter with a hostile force led by Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) gives Elio both a new friend, Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and responsibility for maintaining peace during an unexpected galactic crisis.

    Pixar has not typically followed the route of many Disney movies of giving their child protagonist the trauma of dead parents, and doing so here is the first of a few minor missteps. Having Olga be his mom instead of his aunt would have altered their dynamic, but only slightly. While Elio is shown to miss his parents, his major focus is on making contact with aliens. Since the film only briefly deals with his grief, it would have been better served by excising it altogether.

    For the most part, the film is goofy, with Elio’s enthusiasm for aliens matched by the oddness of the creatures he meets in space. The filmmakers - there are three credited directors and three credited writers - seem to have taken inspiration from sea creatures and Pixar’s own history, as the main bad guy emulates Mike and Sully’s boss from Monsters, Inc. Almost every character in the film is heightened to a degree that makes for funny situations, but not as much sentimentality as other Pixar offerings.

    Surprisingly, especially since the film ends with a voiceover from notable astronomer Carl Sagan, the filmmakers play fast and loose with real-life science. Elio’s journeys to and from the alien spaceship are treated as close-to-instantaneous trips, even involving portals directly to Earth. The idea of the story doesn’t allow them to delve into things like relativistic time dilation, but there still could have been other scientific references to keep the story aboveboard.

    There are very few stars to be found among the film’s voice cast other than Saldaña and Garrett, who are each fine if unmemorable. Kibreab and Edgerly are given many more scenes than anyone else, and they each do a great job of bringing out both the joy and naivete of their characters. Some lesser-known actors like Jameela Jamil, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Brendan Hunt show up in minor roles, but they don’t stand out in any way.

    The story and characters in Elio are sweet and fun, but the film as a whole falls well short of the top tier Pixar movies. The filmmakers could have gone many different directions with a story about a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens, and the way they chose ended up being innocuous and less than compelling.

    ---

    Elio opens in theaters on June 20.

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