On a subway, as displayed in black-and-white in “Passengers”, the trip can be typical if you’re just an average ant of the looming metropolis. The passengers, led by James Urbaniak of “Henry Fool” and Christina Kirk, are headed to wherever their daily lives take them, but there’s a slight change on this trip when a white feather drifts down through a grate as the subway passes and enters this particular train.
Soon, all eyes are following the feather and it lands on Urbaniak, causing the usual strange stares as well as a different one from Kirk. Performed completely without dialogue, “Passengers” is beautifully shot with an eye toward the humdrum lives just passing each other by, but allowing for that one moment sometimes where connections, however brief, are made. Urbaniak, who looks like a gene-crossing between David Hyde Pierce and an introverted psychotic creature who lives alone, plays his face with the right mixture of curiosity, a fleeting smile here and there, and a desire to be left alone. He will always be one of those treasures made specifically for independent cinema.
