Like the late-night radio program at the intersection of the narrative arc in the film, The Passengers of the Night presents a story that seems at first glance ordinary but becomes beguiling and fraught with drama as it deepens. There are no pyrotechnics, and not much in the way of twists, and yet the story acquires momentum in its quietly observant script, crafty editing and naturalistic performances from the ensemble cast. Charlotte Gainsbourg, in particular, has never been better.
Unfolding in chapters over the course of the 1980s in Paris, the film, directed by Mikhaël Hers from a script he written with Maud Ameline and Mariette Désert, opens on a night of celebration following François Mitterrand’s election victory in May 1981. The city streets are thronged with spirited young people energized at the prospect of better days to come, and through it all moves one family in a car. They hang out the windows and wave at the revelers in a mixture of full-screen and archival footage, adding up to a snapshot of nostalgia that feels laced with bittersweetness from the perspective of the present. That much hopefulness and optimism is bound to crash into disappointment, and that’s exactly where the film’s first act takes us.
We find Elisabeth (Gainsbourg) living in Paris’ middle class Beaugrenelle neighborhood with a view of thousands of other windows in a cluster of ’70s-era high-rises. Her teen son Mathias (Quito Rayon Richter) and daughter Judith (Megan Northam) live with her, but her husband has abandoned the family to move in with a girlfriend. Elisabeth is emotionally shattered and financially precarious: she’s never held a paying job in her life. She gets hired and fired on the same day because she’s no good with computers, leaving her even more despondent. The way she sees it, her only skill is being sensitive to the feelings of others, and there doesn’t seem to be a market for that in France’s rapidly modernizing workforce. On a lark, she talks her way into a low-paid position screening phone calls for a late-night program at the Radio France headquarters across the river from her apartment, and it turns out to be the one gig where she can actually use her gift for connecting with people. It’s the first in a series of tiny mercies that will eventually lift Elisabeth and her family out of their funk.
With increased purpose in her days and nights, Elisabeth’s demeanor changes, providing a strong center for Gainsbourg’s performance. We see the exhaustion and dejection gradually drain from her face as she finds greater fulfillment. At times the transformation of her affect is so startling that it seems to be a visual effect, as if she’s digitally de-aging in the blink of an eye, but it’s not that kind of movie; it’s just good acting. In her new job assisting the host (Emmanuelle Béart) of the radio show which shares its name with the film’s title, Elisabeth encounters a doe-faced young woman, Talulah (Noée Abita), who arrives at the studio to be interviewed about her life on the streets of Paris. Elisabeth makes a connection with Talulah, takes pity on her, and invites her to stay in an extra bedroom for a few days. This proves to be a wild card that scrambles the fortunes of everyone in the family.
Our first glimpse of Talulah finds her pressing buttons on a light-up map of the Paris Métro, seemingly choosing destinations at random. In a simple but effective editing move, we see the map of tangled subway lines superimposed on the young girl’s face, and this image resonates with Elisabeth’s lost-in-the-world predicament. It prefigures their connection, and suggests that by helping the rootless waif, Elisabeth is helping herself. The Passengers of the Night isn’t just a story about female empowerment, although that’s a strand of it. It’s also about resilience in the face of adversity, and the restorative power of cinema and poetry, which occupies much of the attention of the young characters. At its core, though, this is a story about one woman finding her groove and changing her own world, one small step at a time. A snippet of dialogue near the end reveals hidden poignancy behind that opening scene of election night celebrations. It adds a subtle twist to the storyline, like a moebius strip in the narrative, but it doesn’t feel contrived. Rather, like most everything else in this quiet but moving film, it feels a lot like real life: one bittersweet thing after another.
Photo courtesy of KimStim
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