Beyond the Lights

Beyond the Lights is a fairly standard show-biz melodrama that is lifted by a strong performance by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who should be on everyone's watch list as the next big thing.

She plays Noni, a Rihanna-like singing star who, as the film gets going, has been featured on songs by a crass white rap star, but hasn't released an album of her own. She is sexed up, with revealing outfits and a lavender weave. Her manager is her mother (Minnie Driver), who is the basic monstrous stage mother, something we've seen since the days of Gypsy.

After Mbutha-Raw wins a Billboard Award, she gets drunk and tries to take a swan dive off her hotel balcony, but is saved by a cop (Nate Parker). He's basically an Eagle Scout--his dad is the police captain (Danny Glover) and he's being groomed to run for office. But the two, in true movie fashion, forge a relationship.

Though the script, which is by the director, Gina Prince-Bythewood, is nothing special, I did like how it honed in on a few things: namely, the vacuousness of entertainment journalism and the vulgar sexualization of female singers. Many entertainment reporters appear as themselves, and perhaps they were unwittingly showing how ridiculous they are, acting as if the behavior of stars is more important than world politics, their insincerity dripping as they ask somberly, "How are you?"

And, in a very good scene, Mbutha-Raw performs on the BET Awards Show with the rapper, who is supposed to rip off a coat and cavort with her in lingerie, but she refuses. Later, in what I imagine is a telling scene for black women, she picks out her weave, showing Parker her real hair. When they part, he tells her he gives her one week before she's back with the weave, her "face down and ass up."

That aside, Beyond the Lights is nothing new. We've seen the angle of big star dating regular Joe before, and Parker, though a stolid presence, is no match for Mbuthu-Raw's star power.