Passages

A gimmicky French love triangle about a married gay man who has an affair with a woman, ultimately jumping beds between two people who ought to know better.

“Passages” is the story of a deeply loathsome man and the two people in love with him.

This French romantic drama, directed by Ira Sachs (the wonderful “Little Men”) and co-written by him and Mauricio Zacharias and Arlette Langmann, is a gimmicky love triangle story. A married gay man begins a sudden affair with a woman. At first they both dismiss it as a fling, but ultimately he decides he would rather be with her than his husband.

But events, and his capricious moods, carry him back and forth between their beds. Each naively thinks the Lothario will end up with them, but the truth is the only person he truly loves is himself.

This is the sort of film where you watch a compelling character and think to yourself, “there is no way such a person exists in real life.” But of course they must, if not (hopefully) in this particularly treacherous configuration.

Franz Rogowski (“Transit”) plays Martin, a German film director. In the opening sequence we watch him shooting a simple scene of the main character walking down stairs into a nightclub, which he compulsively shoots over and over again because he wants it just so. It soon turns into an abusive tirade in front of a large set full of crew and extras, and we grasp that Martin is the sort who instinctively puts his ego above the feelings of others.

His husband is Tomas (Ben Whishaw), an English printer of archaic books and art. They live together in Paris and are reasonably well-to-do, sharing a nice apartment and a home in the country. If Martin is modern and domineering, Tomas is old-fashioned and retiring. We understand how the wallflower would be drawn to the scene-stealer, but not why he stays with him.

I smirked at the contrast in their clothing tastes. Tomas likes flowy, monochromed sweaters and shirts two sizes too big for his slender frame, favoring silk robes around the house. Martin, as you might guess, dresses in an attention-seeking way, with ridiculous see-through shirts and flowered crop tops that would be deemed too gay for a Pride parade.

At a nightclub wrap party for his latest film shoot, Tomas goes home early tired and Martin winds up hooking up with Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a young school teacher. She’s overcome by his feral intensity and single-minded pursuit of her.

Here’s what kind of guy Martin is: he arrives home the next morning and excitedly tells Tomas about having his first sexual experience with a woman. Tomas is disturbed, though he’s used to his husband having flings with other men. Martin truly expects Tomas to be happy for him, and when he hurtfully withdraws that only propels Martin further toward Agathe.

This begins a strange back-and-forth where Martin alternately tells each that he loves them and wants to be with them forever — and they believe him. Moreover, I think Martin believes it himself, at least in the moment when he says it. He’s like George Costanza from “Seinfeld,” such an accomplished liar that he can even convince himself… until he changes his mind.

We are simultaneously intrigued and repulsed by Martin. Rogowski is a unique and interesting physical screen presence, one of those rare sorts who can seem very beautiful or extremely ugly. (Michael Shannon comes to mind.)

With his cropped hair, eyes sunken into pits and skeletal features, he has the air of a charming demon. He also speaks in an indistinct, slightly slurred way (the result of a childhood surgery for a cleft palate) that weirdly reminds me of an effeminate Humphrey Bogart.

Martin consumes so much of the film’s energy, it leaves Tomas and Agathe sucking for air. Tomas does take up with another lover, a writer named Amad (Erwan Kepoa Falé), for a time but is unable to turn Martin away whenever he comes back simpering for attention. Agathe just closes up whenever Martin has turned away from her, leaning on her conservative parents for support.

Interestingly, the sex scenes with Agathe are fairly brief and tame, but the ones between Martin and Tomas are lengthy — honestly, I began to grow listless — and rather explicit. “Passages” is the very rare film these days being released with an NC-17 rating from the MPAA.

Maybe if this film were more of a true love triangle, instead of ungainly weighted to Martin and his titanic narcissism, it might have made for a more complex and intriguing picture. As it is, the main character is such a mix of attractive and repellent, it’s only a matter of time before the other two grow tired of him — as does the audience.