There has been no shortage of hip-hop star birth narratives hitting screens in recent years, but like hip-hop itself for most of its history, there hasn't always been much room for stories. women. Tracing a teenage girl's complicated ascent through the battle rap circuit to the even more complicated heights of viral stardom, Sanaa Lathan's "On the Come Up" provides a welcome exception to this rule, but luckily it has a lot more to it. your favor than just that. As frank and tough as it is warm and sweet, "On the Come Up" is a hugely promising debut from the actor-turned-director.
Sixteen-year-old Bri (Jamila C. Gray) is already a talented rapper when we first meet her in her fictional Garden Heights neighborhood, and she's already been through a lifetime of turmoil. Her father was a legendary local MC named Lawless, who was killed just as her career was starting to take off. She spent part of her childhood away from her mother (Lathan) as she battled drug addiction, and although she is now clean, her mother-daughter bond has yet to be fully repaired. And what's more, as part of the small contingent of black students at her school, she's forced to deal with unsympathetic administrators and suspicious campus police, one of whom knocks her to the ground after seeing her selling Skittles to a fellow student. of class.
Director: Sanaa Lathan
Writers: Zora Howard, Kay OyegunAngie Thomas
Stars: Sanaa Lathan, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Method Man
However, there is nothing tragic or self-pitying about Bri, who has her own grand ambitions to worry about. She wants to follow in her father's footsteps under the rapper name Lil Law, and led by her boisterous, drug-dealing Aunt Pooh (a terrific Da'Vine Joy Randolph), she first sets her sights on the ruthless amateur scene from Garden Heights. After a few false starts, her rhymes catch the attention of her father's old manager, a now-rich businessman named Supreme (Cliff "Method Man" Smith), who recently landed a major record deal for another up-and-coming neighborhood (Lil Yachty, clearly having fun). Against Auntie Pooh's strong advice, Bri decides to listen to him.
Meanwhile, Bri navigates the remaining horrors of high school with Ella's childhood friend Malik, who is brutally honest about everything except that he clearly has a crush on her. And when her mother's precarious job situation starts racking up "final notice" utility bills, Bri's rap battle earnings make her the temporary breadwinner, introducing another uneasy dose of strain on her already tenuous relationship.
Adapted from the second novel by "The Hate U Give" author Angie Thomas, the script sometimes has a hard time keeping all of its various threads woven together: Bri's battles with her school district tend to fade from view for long stretches. , only to be surprised when they finish. they resurface strongly, but Lathan imbues the film with a certain looseness that gives these ebbs and flows the feel of real life. Subtle moments have room to breathe, characters can make mistakes without those mistakes defining their characters, and Lathan's emphasis on shades of gray within the film's larger conflicts helps lift the story above its limits. more formulated elements. As is so often the case in these kinds of narratives, Bri is ultimately forced to choose between careerism and artistic integrity, but even here the film is well-tuned to how fine the line can be between selling out and playing the game, and what it does. unpredictable the result may be. consequences of either decision can be.
But what really brings "On the Come Up" together is Bri, who always feels like a real-life character even as she defies these familiar narrative obstacles. She's not a super confident force of nature, nor a "who me?" wallflower. She is sometimes down to earth and wise beyond her years, other times she is naive and even thoughtless. In other words, she's definitely 16, and the movie is smart about the ways that precocious talent and age-appropriate immaturity can easily co-exist. Newcomer Gray does wonderfully in the role, keeping the character's prickly edges and underlying vulnerability in delicate balance at all times, as he approaches acting scenes like a pro.
The performance is inspired by everything from Cooper's shy, slack-jawed charm, to Method Man's surprisingly nuanced take on a music industry hustler: he may be cynical and unreliable, but he lets you see exactly where his cold comes from. calculation.