The Passengers of the Night: French Film Plumbs the Quiet Joy of Ordinary Life. Shhh.
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B-
The argument these days is that too many films are about sensation. Big action movies, superhero movies, movies that deliver a lot of adrenaline and thrills but really don’t ask much of the viewer.
With his latest film The Passengers of the Night, French director Mikhaël Hers goes in the opposite direction, making a movie that resists manipulation and drama. The characters are all going through some of life’s predictable challenges, but quietly, internally and without much outward confrontation.
Emmanuelle Béart hosts a radio talk show, a lifeline for employee Elisabeth (Charlotte Gainsbourg)
It’s a thoughtful and gentle way of approaching a movie about navigating life’s upheavals. And risky. Hers’ movie is human scale, which is a beautiful thing, and ultimately has a satisfying enough conclusion, but its low-key approach means that it takes a while to engage.
Charlotte Gainsbourg stars as Elisabeth, who lives with her children, the college-bound Judith, (Megan Northam) and her teenaged son Matias (Quito Rayon Richter) in the family’s high-rise flat in Paris. Her husband has just left her for another woman, shattering her self-esteem and causing financial stress. She’s been out of the work force for more than a decade, feels she has no marketable skills, and now needs a job.
She is a sensitive, sympathetic and open person. Those qualities are part of what land her a job at an all-night call-in radio show called The Passengers of the Night hosted by the no-nonsense veteran broadcaster Vanya (Emmanuelle Béart). One night a young girl, from what we can tell a quietly confident teenage runaway named Talulah (Noée Abita) is a guest on the show. After the show Elisabeth, seeing that Talulah has no place to go, invites her to crash at the family’s apartment for a few days.
Talulah, a loner, ends up being is a good fit with the family. She particularly bonds with Mathias, who is at a defining point in his life, still unsure of himself particularly around the girls to whom he is attracted.
Talulah has problems, but self-awareness doesn’t appear to be one of them. She seems tuned to her effect on the family and theirs on her, and one day leaves before the family wakes up. Life goes on. Like most events we see in the film, Hers doesn’t stay there long enough to really explore what that means emotionally for the characters.
Nothing is tumultuous. We see Elisabeth’s sadness and tears at times, but she continues to work, to gain her post-divorce equilibrium, to take care of her family, as life flows to her.
The Passengers of the Night is, at its core about life’s transitions and the way most of us in our ordinary lives grow through them: one day at a time, step by step, as opposed to major earth shattering interventions.
But it walks softly, an approach that doesn’t draw viewers into big emotional moments. And to keep that quiet tone, Hers doesn’t let anything go on too long, so that some are just really vignettes. We get the main scenes, but not always cause and effect.
At regular intervals he breaks up what the characters are up to with what looks like documentary footage of street scenes from the 1980s when the film is set, which adds a wistfulness or light whiff of nostalgia.
The film particularly focuses on Matias and Elisabeth, and to a lesser degree Talulah. But there are no hugely revelatory moments for the characters, no “Aha!” moments, at least not on screen. We see situations that may lead to those, but the way characters grapple with them is often off-camera.
It’s an interesting way of telling the story, but it has its drawbacks. The film is linear, in the sense that we move forward through time. But dipping in and out of certain points in the character’s lives means that some of the events and interactions seemed odd, or forced.
And although the more time we spend with the characters the deeper and more engaging it is, it does take time to be drawn in. The Passengers of the Night may be the kind of film that benefits from a second viewing.
Not having great moments of screen catharsis also puts a lot of pressure on the actors, even though we’re aware that things we’ve seen in previous scenes have been challenging for them. We see changes in the way the characters behave when we next see them. And the good news is that they all rise to their respective life challenges.
This is particularly true of Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is eminently watchable and brings a quiet grace to her performances. Her character doesn’t have a big scene where she comes to terms with her past, but we see over the span of the film, that she’s moving forward and making a life for herself, and in her own way keeping true to what’s important to her and her family.
The moral: There’s a quiet joy in ordinary life.
The Passengers Of The Night. Directed by Mikhaël Hers. Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Quito Rayon Richter, Noée Abita, Megan Northam, and Emmanuelle Béart. Opens in theatres July 1.