Passing Through

Summary

“Passing Through” (2023) follows a young woman who reconnects with her estranged, hedonistic father after finding him in an unexpected setting: a hospice facility tucked into the gaudy, sun-soaked sprawl of South Florida. What begins as an uneasy visit gradually becomes an intimate encounter between two people trying to understand what remains of their relationship after years of distance, disappointment, and incompatible ways of living. At the center of the film are the daughter, searching for a clearer sense of who her father is and what she can still hope to receive from him, and the father, a charismatic but deeply flawed figure whose appetite for pleasure has shaped both his life and his bond with his child. The hospice’s patients, staff, and unusual surroundings provide a vivid backdrop for their interactions, placing private family tensions against a world that is at once absurd, melancholy, and unexpectedly warm. Rather than treating illness solely as a tragedy, the film uses the hospice setting to examine mortality, regret, and the possibility of reconciliation. Its portrait of South Florida—part paradise, part spectacle—echoes the father’s own contradictions, while the relationship at its heart explores how love can persist alongside anger, embarrassment, and estrangement. “Passing Through” is ultimately a bittersweet character drama about confronting the past and discovering whether connection is still possible when time is running short.