More than anything, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights is a great romance.
It’s not like we get a new one of those everyday. It’s about two people who
make a meaningful connection, seeing the real souls behind images being
constructed for them in the beginning stages of public personas, one a pop
star, the other a politician. In the process of following their connection, the
film weaves together showbiz drama and political ambitions to make a fine point
about negotiations between public and private selves, and potential solace in
finding a person who seems to love you for who you are, not just what you
represent. It’s a sharply drawn, deeply felt story, as smart as it is sexy, as
complicated as it is compassionate. It helps that it’s not a romantic fantasy,
or rather, not only fantasy.
They meet at a moment of high drama. She’s Noni (Gugu
Mbatha-Raw), an R&B diva on the rise. She hasn’t even released her first
album yet, but she’s come a long way from getting second place in local talent
competitions of her childhood, like the one that opens the film. Collaborations
on hit songs – we see the video for one, a writhing, hyper-sexualized thing –
with dim bulb rapper Kid Culprit (Richard Colson Baker) have just won her a
Billboard Music Award. Everything’s looking up, but after the afterparty, when
the handsome young cop (Nate Parker) bursts into her hotel room, she’s about to
jump off the balcony. He saves her life, and her grateful stage mom manager
(Minnie Driver in an intense performance) convinces him to tell everyone she
merely slipped. The world knowing about the suicide attempt could really derail
her rising star.
A more sensationalistic writer-director might take these
early scenes as a launching pad for increasing stakes and twists. Instead, the
film settles into a comfortable exploration of these characters. The actors
provide nicely layered performances, able to play multifaceted people with
ease. Noni is grateful for her hero cop’s help, and he’s drawn to her glimmer
of personality hiding under half-dressed magazine-cover poses and hip-shaking
choreography. They start a flirtation that becomes a tentative relationship,
hounded at every turn by the gossip press and the dictates of their parents.
Her mother wants to make sure her daughter's album drops flawlessly, and doesn’t want the new beau reminding the public about the incident. His father, the chief of
police (Danny Glover), is helping his son prepare a run for city council,
taking meetings with donors, consultants, party leaders. He has big dreams for
his son, at one point telling him Noni isn’t “first lady material.”
This perspective makes the couple into rounded, complex
people instead of cogs in a machine running on cheap dramatics. There isn’t a
sense of inevitability because it’s grounded where the average Nicolas Sparks
adaptation prefers sun-dappled fantasy. We understand where the characters are
coming from, the goals they’ve worked so hard to achieve. It makes their
connection all the more potent, to know what makes them tick apart from the
spark between them. Too many movie romances rush this part, defining the
central couple largely by how they interact with each other. This is a
melodrama that earns its every tug on the heartstrings. The film is balanced,
allowing us to see the surface allure that draws each in. He sees the glamour
and fame of her lifestyle. She sees him as the square-jawed hero. But we also
see how fragile a manufactured star she is, as well as the workaday cop duties
and pragmatic political calculations he must consider.
With fine, realistic detail, we come to understand how the world works in their bubbles,
what dictates the controls over their lives, and what difficulties may arise
reconciling the two. These are characters whose ambitions are boxing them in,
who let in some fresh air by finding a romantic spirit in an unexpected place,
even at the risk of derailing their perfect plans for public life. There’s not
a scene out of place as the film develops their lives and personalities
separately and together. Parker’s dazed but encouraging presence is a nice match
to the stifled insecurities Mbatha-Raw brings to the fore as we see glossy
awards shows, photoshoots, and meetings with record labels contrasted with
police calls and meet-and-greets. They’re both clad in uniforms. Hers are
clinging dresses draped in chains, plunging necklines, and her straight purple
hair. His are more literal, a police uniform, sharp suits. When they’re
together, they’re more casual, relaxed, themselves. The wardrobes draw
off-handed focus to their bodies, a sensuality that amplifies the comfort they
increasingly feel towards each other.
The evolution of their relationship is so closely observed,
wonderfully performed by the talented cast, and precisely developed by
writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood. It’s not a film that declares itself
loudly, but is so confident in its characters and perspective that it grabbed
me in the opening frames and never let go. It’s the rare romance movie in which
I actually was completely involved in the couple’s plight, desperate for them
to find a way to be together. Their individual plotlines are finely detailed,
with great scenes apart from one another, the better to make their scenes
together sizzle with easy chemistry and swooning charm. It’s a great romance
because it’s a good story with interesting characters. It would work as drama
even without the romance, about the intimacy, not only between lovers, but
collaborators, business partners, and parents and children as well. It has
scenes that unfold with such simplicity and restraint, I found myself taken
aback by how moved I was.
Prince-Bythewood is a major, often vastly underappreciated,
voice in American cinema. With heartfelt romances like Love & Basketball and Disappearing
Acts, and an appealing literary adaptation, The Secret Life of Bees, she’s proven herself a subtle and mature
filmmaker. Her camera doesn’t call attention to itself. Her filmmaking craft is
the stuff of sturdy, expert studio construction. But that invisible skill, no
less effective than a more showboating style, allows her every frame to exude a
well-considered eye for emotional terrains. With Beyond the Lights, she continues to be one of the last great
Hollywood melodramatists. She’s unafraid to earnestly and tenderly tell stories
of relationships without apology. This is her best film, a full,
stick-to-the-ribs, heartwarming drama, rich with feeling.
Here we have a beautifully told story of human connection
struggling to catch fire in a world that craves only shallow fakery and
transactional relationships. It’s genuinely affecting, with larger themes, most
potently about the way women are treated in the entertainment business, growing
naturally out of who the characters are, why they make certain choices, and
what they need from each other. This isn’t an uncomplicated love-conquers-all
scenario with perfect soul mates healing each other. No, this is a mature and
complicatedly nuanced story that earns its every moment of drama. Because it
gives us something to care about beyond the relationship, it heightens the
potency of the romance. It could’ve easily been maudlin in its relationship,
scolding in its look at the entertainment business. But it’s not. The script
has a sympathetic and subtle understanding of love, fame, depression, and
self-actualization. It’s simply clear-eyed, genuine, and moving.
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