Review of Beyond the Lights (2014) by Azeem H — 30 May 2015

Honestly this film annoyed the heck out of me, the saving grace for this film was that of Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Minnie Driver.

This film storyline is just plain dull and uninteresting, a celebrity pop singer has just made it in the big time. But shock horror is all screwed up, so after becoming a BillBoard artist she drunkenly decides to kill herself. Enter Nate Parker's police officer Kazam Nicol who has his own aspirations, who saves her and says he see the girl we meet at the start of the film. Naturally a love story evolves, then something happens which splits them up before they are reconciled to a happily ever after.

Okay this story sucks, turns out that celebrities are people and they need love as well, really!!! Is that the best they could come up with? Still the performances are engaging and the direction is smart. However some of the dialogue is cringeworthy and the musical choices leave a lot to be desired out with Nina Simone's Blackbird which is fairly apt and is actually quite affecting mixed in with Raw's performance.

Speaking of Gugu Mbatha-Raw she is on fire in this role and shows her talent, the best scene of the entire film is a scene between herself and Minnie Driver where they duke it out in a long overdue heart to heart.

Overall this film is watchable for the most part, the performances are engaging but I wouldn't call it a keeper, another for the Netflix queue.