Chris Knipp
11-28-2014, 10:24 AM
Gina Prince-Bythewood: BEYOND THE LIGHTS (2014)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/tr.jpg
Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Nate Parker in Beyond the Lights
Show biz romance and empowerment
Beyond the Lights is an exciting movie. It's also full of aspiration, hope, and romance. Its heroine, Noni, begins as a little black girl in an unfashionable part of England with kinky hair and glasses who sings a Nina Simone song in a talent contest won by a white girl who tap dances badly. Next thing you know she's grown up and become a Beyonce- or Rihana-type star played by the pretty, confident and convincing Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who impressed earlier this year in the art house period drama Belle (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3741-BELLE-(Amma-Asante-2013)&p=32320#post32320). Her shrewish stage mother is still there and will remain so throughout. Minnie Driver brings class to this thankless, shrill role. Noni is successful, but she's unhappy. Her name sounds like "nobody" and she feels unrecognized. The rest of the movie is about Noni's struggle to Be Herself. The simplicity of this story is oppressive. But it works like a charm. Nobody is saying it's sophisticated or even convincing. But many are enthralled by it and say it shows popular art doesn't have to be schlock. Really it is schlock, a screen version of a Bodice Ripper novel. And Kaz (Nate Parker), the man who comes to Noni's rescue, has the big bared muscular torso of Bodice Ripper covers.
Part of Noni's manipulation is that the record company has paired her with a white heavily tattooed rapper called Kid Culprit (a comic book version of a rapper name), played by real white rapper Richard Colson Baker, better known as MGK or Machine Gun Kelly. If there is a romance between Kid Culprit and Noni it's no more real than the rest of her life. Kid Culprit's scrawniness is well chosen to be overwhelmed by the big chocolate hunk that is Nate Parker. Kid Culprit is just a token to be thrown away, and subdued by Kaz when he protests. (Poor MGK: white rappers get a raw deal here. But they got their empowerment story in a better movie, Eight Mile, starring Eminem.)
Beyond the Lights is a show-biz biopic, but not being about a real person it need not be held down by the complexities of a life story and can focus on the big, thumping, sweeping moments that carry forward its theme of empowerment and true love. It does feel up to date, with its barely legal performance outfits and provocative dance productions replete with exploitative tits and ass moves; its flashy SUVs; its loud recording studio conferences. It even has Danny Glover as Kaz's father. I could never quite believe the subplot of Kaz's political aspirations. His father is a cop and so is he. At first he seems barely more than a security guard. A policeman's job is painted in broad, childish strokes. He's a Boy Scout (the dialogue says so). He helps people, saves Latina women from abusive husbands, rescues depressed starlets (Noni) who jump off balconies. Corruption may rear its head if Boy Scout cops like Kaz decide to run for office. Then they get manipulated too, just like pop stars.
Romance overrides the restrictions and rules of "real life" or credibility. Noni is surrounded by handlers to speed her to her next performance. She has her own plane. The public is kept at a safe distance. Yet after Kaz has pulled Noni back onto the balcony following her suicide attempt with those big strong arms of his (which will be shown off plenty later) and Noni likes him for saying "I see you" (assuring her for the very first time ever that she exists as a person), meetings between Kaz and Noni multiply, crossing boundaries. Prince-Bythewood, whose writing is as sure-handed as her directing, skillfully plays with the implausibility of the action. Romance isn't meant to be plausible -- or so many reviewers of this film assert.
Noni and Kaz have their idyll, running off and hiding, till social media find them, in Mexico. (This felt to me like an episode from the Twilight movies.) Here comes the classic black person's reawakening. Noni takes off her hair extensions and appears to Kaz with her kinky hair. When she returns to her life she speaks up to the manipulative record producers and to her mother and insists -- surely a somewhat meek and pathetic victory? -- on having one song she has written included in her next album. No more hair extensions and no more glitzy, exhibitionistic outfits: the new Noni will be a real person. Does it even matter if Kaz is there with her? At moments it seems maybe Kaz was, like Kid Culprit, just a temporary appendage to help Noni on the way to greater fame and success.
All the scenes of Beyond the Light or nearly all of them are warm and intense. The cinematography is claustrophobically up front. The audience is bathed in the giddy excitement of Noni's life. The only trouble is that there isn't very much to Noni, even the "real" one. She can never hope to achieve the passion and pain in that Nina Simone song, and in Nina Simone herself; or, she may achieve these qualities in her performances, but as a person, off stage she will lack them. But fault-finding with such an accomplished Bodice Ripper of a movie as this no doubt seems churlish.
Beyond the Lights, 116 mins., debuted at Toronto. It opened in US theaters 14 November 2014. Armond White (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/392708/foxcatcher-2014s-worst-movie-be-yond-lights-hits-high-note-armond-white) notes the film "deftly employs numerous pop culture codes," and Variety's (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/toronto-film-review-beyond-the-lights-1201300505/) Andrew Barker notes that it "tackles a number of tough issues with rather admirable directness" and "the faux tunes are catchy, and only a degree or two more ridiculous than what’s presently on the radio." Metacritic rating of 73 whose the reviewers have been more than forgiving.
http://www.chrisknipp.com/newpictures/tr.jpg
Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Nate Parker in Beyond the Lights
Show biz romance and empowerment
Beyond the Lights is an exciting movie. It's also full of aspiration, hope, and romance. Its heroine, Noni, begins as a little black girl in an unfashionable part of England with kinky hair and glasses who sings a Nina Simone song in a talent contest won by a white girl who tap dances badly. Next thing you know she's grown up and become a Beyonce- or Rihana-type star played by the pretty, confident and convincing Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who impressed earlier this year in the art house period drama Belle (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3741-BELLE-(Amma-Asante-2013)&p=32320#post32320). Her shrewish stage mother is still there and will remain so throughout. Minnie Driver brings class to this thankless, shrill role. Noni is successful, but she's unhappy. Her name sounds like "nobody" and she feels unrecognized. The rest of the movie is about Noni's struggle to Be Herself. The simplicity of this story is oppressive. But it works like a charm. Nobody is saying it's sophisticated or even convincing. But many are enthralled by it and say it shows popular art doesn't have to be schlock. Really it is schlock, a screen version of a Bodice Ripper novel. And Kaz (Nate Parker), the man who comes to Noni's rescue, has the big bared muscular torso of Bodice Ripper covers.
Part of Noni's manipulation is that the record company has paired her with a white heavily tattooed rapper called Kid Culprit (a comic book version of a rapper name), played by real white rapper Richard Colson Baker, better known as MGK or Machine Gun Kelly. If there is a romance between Kid Culprit and Noni it's no more real than the rest of her life. Kid Culprit's scrawniness is well chosen to be overwhelmed by the big chocolate hunk that is Nate Parker. Kid Culprit is just a token to be thrown away, and subdued by Kaz when he protests. (Poor MGK: white rappers get a raw deal here. But they got their empowerment story in a better movie, Eight Mile, starring Eminem.)
Beyond the Lights is a show-biz biopic, but not being about a real person it need not be held down by the complexities of a life story and can focus on the big, thumping, sweeping moments that carry forward its theme of empowerment and true love. It does feel up to date, with its barely legal performance outfits and provocative dance productions replete with exploitative tits and ass moves; its flashy SUVs; its loud recording studio conferences. It even has Danny Glover as Kaz's father. I could never quite believe the subplot of Kaz's political aspirations. His father is a cop and so is he. At first he seems barely more than a security guard. A policeman's job is painted in broad, childish strokes. He's a Boy Scout (the dialogue says so). He helps people, saves Latina women from abusive husbands, rescues depressed starlets (Noni) who jump off balconies. Corruption may rear its head if Boy Scout cops like Kaz decide to run for office. Then they get manipulated too, just like pop stars.
Romance overrides the restrictions and rules of "real life" or credibility. Noni is surrounded by handlers to speed her to her next performance. She has her own plane. The public is kept at a safe distance. Yet after Kaz has pulled Noni back onto the balcony following her suicide attempt with those big strong arms of his (which will be shown off plenty later) and Noni likes him for saying "I see you" (assuring her for the very first time ever that she exists as a person), meetings between Kaz and Noni multiply, crossing boundaries. Prince-Bythewood, whose writing is as sure-handed as her directing, skillfully plays with the implausibility of the action. Romance isn't meant to be plausible -- or so many reviewers of this film assert.
Noni and Kaz have their idyll, running off and hiding, till social media find them, in Mexico. (This felt to me like an episode from the Twilight movies.) Here comes the classic black person's reawakening. Noni takes off her hair extensions and appears to Kaz with her kinky hair. When she returns to her life she speaks up to the manipulative record producers and to her mother and insists -- surely a somewhat meek and pathetic victory? -- on having one song she has written included in her next album. No more hair extensions and no more glitzy, exhibitionistic outfits: the new Noni will be a real person. Does it even matter if Kaz is there with her? At moments it seems maybe Kaz was, like Kid Culprit, just a temporary appendage to help Noni on the way to greater fame and success.
All the scenes of Beyond the Light or nearly all of them are warm and intense. The cinematography is claustrophobically up front. The audience is bathed in the giddy excitement of Noni's life. The only trouble is that there isn't very much to Noni, even the "real" one. She can never hope to achieve the passion and pain in that Nina Simone song, and in Nina Simone herself; or, she may achieve these qualities in her performances, but as a person, off stage she will lack them. But fault-finding with such an accomplished Bodice Ripper of a movie as this no doubt seems churlish.
Beyond the Lights, 116 mins., debuted at Toronto. It opened in US theaters 14 November 2014. Armond White (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/392708/foxcatcher-2014s-worst-movie-be-yond-lights-hits-high-note-armond-white) notes the film "deftly employs numerous pop culture codes," and Variety's (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/toronto-film-review-beyond-the-lights-1201300505/) Andrew Barker notes that it "tackles a number of tough issues with rather admirable directness" and "the faux tunes are catchy, and only a degree or two more ridiculous than what’s presently on the radio." Metacritic rating of 73 whose the reviewers have been more than forgiving.