Passing is one of the must-see films of 2021, one that will stay in your mind well after the credits have begun to roll.

Much of "Passing" could be a stage play: people talking in confined spaces, the confinement figurative as well as literal. It's a chamber drama bearing the weight of several centuries.

Hall breathes life and light into it in a way that lends a weight of beauty and honesty to its immersion into a world of purposeful pretense.

Its pure existence may be a sign of hope to cinephiles.