'Passages' captures intimacy up-close — and the result is messy and mesmerizing

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/ [login to see] /passages-review-ira-sachs
The New York-based writer-director Ira Sachs has a gift for putting romance, gay and straight, under a microscope. In his earlier independent dramas, like Forty Shades of Blue, Keep the Lights On and Love Is Strange, he examines all the things that can test a long-term relationship, from infidelity and addiction to issues around money and real estate. But while Sachs' storytelling is rich in emotional honesty, there can also be a muted quality to his work, as if he were studying his characters rather than plunging us right in alongside them.