In news that is actually good, Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson will star in Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut, Passing. According to Deadline, Hall wrote the script, based on Nella Larsen’s Harlem Renaissance novel of the same name. Negga and Thompson will star as Clare Kendry and Irene Redfield, respectively, high-school friends who reunite later in life. Clare lives in Europe and “passes†for white, keeping her black identity a secret from everyone, including her family. As she and Irene become close, the novel explores the binaries of race, sexuality, and class.
“Nella Larsen’s Passing is an astonishing book about two women struggling not just with what it meant to be black in America in 1929, but with gender conventions, the performance of femininity, the institution of marriage, the responsibilities of motherhood, and the ways in which all of those forces intersect,†Hall said in a statement. Her Professor Marston and the Wonder Women director Angela Robinson will executive-produce.