Some good movies are bold, inventive exercises in rich storytelling, depth of character, or riveting visual art. Others endear themselves more gently to you through simple atmosphere and earnest messaging -in spite of mechanics that may not be the most original or unique. The Passengers of the Night is the latter kind of movie. Despite the poetry of its’ title, it’s not all that profound a piece, but its’ mood and its’ naturalness is such that you can’t help being entranced by it as you watch. It’s kind of the secret ingredient to many a great indie film that plays as a slice-of-life drama. Sure, the motions may be the same, but it’s the care that goes into them that makes the real difference.
The Passengers of the Night, from director Mikhaël Hers, benefits from this immensely -it is a viscerally warm movie, even in its dour themes. Set in the 1980s and around a Paris apartment complex, it is centred on a recently divorced mother Élisabeth (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who finds a job at a late night radio station where she meets and soon takes in Talulah (Noée Abita), a homeless girl with a spirited personality but addiction issues whose presence has a great effect on the family -and most especially Élisabeth’s teenage son Matthias (Quito Rayon-Richter).
A bit saccharine a premise, and the movie doesn’t tread much new water with it creatively, tending towards some usual drama, coming-of-age hallmarks, and feel-good clichés as it touches on these lives during a small spectrum of years. The struggling mother finds fulfillment in an unconventional job, the artistic boy falls for the lively spontaneous girl -we’ve seen it all before. But maybe its’ Hers’ attraction to these characters and the intricacies of their thoughts and feelings that transcends any cynicism of these tropes, or else just his own brand of simple subjective honesty. Because little of it feels tired or calculated or at all inauthentic; and even as threads of the plot diverge, Élisabeth following her own path almost wholly separate from her initial kindness to Talulah, it all is strikingly organic -and genuinely, temperately sweet to behold.
One aspect of this is just how well Hers immerses the audience in this time period. The 80s French political scene is constantly on the margins of the film, and obviously Élisabeth’s job is one that most likely wouldn’t exist in our modern world -a couple times we see the kids go to the cinema, where they watch a Rohmer film -but there really aren’t a lot of dead giveaways to the era. And yet Hers’ frequent use of archive footage for establishing shots and transitions, specific down to identifying the exact neighbourhood and apartment structure these characters occupy, serves to give presence to the time and place and envelope you in its’ contexts. It also captures well that sense of nostalgia for particular environments and experiences. That small dim-red recording studio has a romance to it that seems alien today. And the design of Élisabeth’s apartment is gorgeous, with its’ quaint furnishings and that large squircle window that at night casts an opulent radiance over the vicinity, with a deep, enticing view behind -it’s a quintessentially 80s look and I love it!
Complimenting these aesthetics are characters who are likewise charmingly real, and that comes down a lot to performance. Charlotte Gainsbourg is of course one of the more celebrated actresses in international cinema (primarily through her collaborations with Lars von Trier), but I’ll admit I haven’t had much exposure to her talents. As this gentle, inauspicious woman dealing with a lot of pain and trepidation, she brings a tender quiet melancholy that over the course of her story diminishes as her confidence, contentment, and openness grows. She’s an introverted figure, carrying a lot of mixed emotions over her divorce; a survivor of breast cancer which has hurt her self-image and contributes to her loneliness. But through it all she is such a pleasant, compassionate personality that you only wish the best for. It is such a triumph when she manages to find a genuine, loving partner in Hugo (Thibault Vinçon). And Gainsbourg achieves this by managing to allude to trauma without dwelling in it.
The same method applies to Talulah, whose demons are never depicted outright -we see her only in the contours that the family sees her. And while at times it feels like this is shying away from confronting difficult subject matter, Abita’s performance is flushed so richly with the ambiguity that it hardly matters. She is terrific, the character reading very much as a thin archetype dream-girl for the boy, but in her hands suggests more depth, more complex attitudes of sadness and yearning. As much as she is seen in relation to Matthias, she is not tied to him, as shown in the films’ most interesting beat at the midpoint. I want to spotlight the performance of Megan Northam too, who plays Judith, Élisabeth’s daughter and a staunch leftist political activist -who begins the film just as significant as her mother and brother, but disappears subsequently for much of the second act. She is quite fun, teasingly funny, and Northam plays her just as earnestly as Gainsbourg and Abita. It would have been nice to see more of relationship between her and Talulah, especially as the movie ultimately positions the foursome as its’ tight family unit -despite her being left out of a large portion of it. As to Rayon-Richter, he is probably the dullest of the films’ principal players, though I suspect his characters’ outline and direction is more to blame -Matthias is a lightly rebellious, artistically inclined, sexually curious but emotionally closed-off, and somewhat entitled youth of a kind that feels particularly common in French cinema, but recognizable worldwide. He’s not as capable of rising above that and shouldering nuance as Abita is -although he certainly has his moments. The one other figure worth mentioning is Élisabeth’s boss Vanda, played by Emmanuelle Béart, who doesn’t add a whole lot to the movie outside of a moody voiceover and a strong conviction in her recording studio -she is the legacy name on the film and acts the part.
Hers eventually uses the story and the evolving lives and relationships of its’ leads to comment on change -an apparent echo, albeit a subtle one, to changes going on in France during that decade. And he expresses a bittersweet fondness for it. Once again returning to time-specific footage he incorporates through flashbacks scenes of the teenagers’ childhood, which might indicate a personal connection to the story being told. And it is interwoven into one of the more emotional parting of the ways between parent and children this side of Boyhood. Those moments of the film that hone in on togetherness, whether it be in love or strife, good feeling or bad are where it connects the most. The Passengers of the Night are exactly as that sentiment evokes: strangers who have found each other moving through an uncertain life. It’s romantic, optimistic, lovely -this film asks you to go along with all that. And you have to have quite the resolve not to.
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