NC-17 Rating Slapped on Gay Romantic Drama 'Passages' – Distributor Vows to Screen Film 'Unrated, Uncut'

The Motion Picture Association has saddled Iras Sachs' new gay drama "Passages" with an NC-17 rating – and it's probably not due to the film's heterosexual sex scenes, of which there are several. The movie also contains one nude – though not overly explicit – love scene between the two male leads, British actor Ben Whishaw and German actor Franz Rogowski.

The film tells the story of a movie director, Tomas (Rogowski) who launches into a love affair with a woman, Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) he meets in a Paris club. Tomas' husband (Whishaw) is patient at first, but as the relationship between Tomas and Agathe continues, Martin begins to go his own way – only for Tomas to start to waver.

Noting that none of the movie's sex scenes "are salacious or gratuitous," NBC News zeroed in on one scene that "centers on the husbands having sex and is shot in an unbroken long take that runs just over two minutes." In that scene, Martin tops Tomas, whose legs are wrapped around Martin's torso as his hands caress Martin's body. At moments, Tomas appears to finger his husband.

The film's distributor, MUBI, "officially rejected" the NC-17 label, and vowed to release the film unrated and intact.

"MUBI has officially rejected this NC-17 rating," NBC News quoted the distributor saying in a statement. "MUBI remains committed to releasing 'Passages' nationwide in its original version as the filmmaker intended, with our full backing, unrated and uncut."

First deployed in 1990 for the movie "Henry & June," the NC-17 rating was created as a way to indicate a film possesses true artistic merit but also contains explicit content. It was touted as an alternative to the stigma of the X rating, long associated with pornography (though violent content has also been known to result in an X rating).

But for exhibitors and audiences, NC-17 – which indicates that no one under the age of 17 will be allowed, even if accompanied by an adult – might as well be an X.

As MUBI put it in their statement, "An NC-17 rating suggests the film's depiction of sex is explicit or gratuitous, which it is not, and that mainstream audiences will be offended by this portrayal, which we believe is also false."

Rather, MUBI declared, "Frank and thoughtful portrayals of sex are essential to cinematic storytelling and in service of representation more broadly."

In the case of "Passages," the Los Angeles Times wrote, depictions of sexuality are crucial to the film's story and themes. "The evolving dynamics of the relationships are explored, in part, through" the sex scenes.

Sachs took a similar line, telling the LA Times that he has not even considered editing the film's sexual content in pursuit of an R rating. "There's no untangling the film from what it is," Sachs told the newspaper. "It is a film that is very open about the place of sexual experience in our lives. And to shift that now would be to create a very different movie."

As to the MPA's reasons for the rating, "I think we got something that looks like it was written by my great-aunt," the director said. "In this case, it was about ass and fingers and bodies in motion. And it's very funny, because it's written by someone who seems to be literally from a different era."

The LA Times noted that "films have occasionally accepted the rating, such as Steve McQueen's 'Shame' and the Exarchapoulos-starring 'Blue Is the Warmest Color,' but distributors have largely avoided it. Other films given an NC-17 have opted – like the team behind 'Passages' – to reject the rating and go unrated, such as Todd Solondz's 'Happiness' and Darren Aronofsky's 'Requiem for a Dream.'"

More recently, the Times noted, "Brandon Cronenberg's 'Infinity Pool' received an NC-17 but was recut for an R rating.

"Last year's Marilyn Monroe biopic 'Blonde' became the first Netflix original film to earn an NC-17," the account added, "and was only the second NC-17 film to be released at all since 2015."

Speaking about the MPA – which also branded Sachs' considerably tamer gay drama "Love is Strange" with an R, ostensibly for language – Sachs declared, "We're talking about a select group of people who have a certain bent, which seems anti-gay, anti-progress, anti-sex – a lot of things which I'm not."

The MPA denied to the LA Times that its ratings decisions are handed down differently to movies with LGBTQ+ themes, with a spokesperson telling the outlet, "The MPA's Classification and Rating Administration rates movies based on their content – what happens on screen and how it is depicted. The sexual orientation of a character or characters is not considered as part of the rating process."

Sachs called the MPA's move "reactionary," and told the LA Times, "It's really about a form of cultural censorship that is quite dangerous, particularly in a culture which is already battling, in such extreme ways, the possibility of LGBT imagery to exist."