Love to have a mid-life crisis! That is the moment. Awards seasons and festivals are experiencing the wildest Upside Down moment in all history for the foreseeable future. That hasn't stopped this movie from winning a directing award at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Naturally, I had to watch this just to see what's going on. The Forty-Year-Old Version is about a once up-and-coming New York City playwright has lost her way. Radha has since left the theatre to teach teens how to write and act in their own plays. When the opportunity comes for one of her projects to be staged, the conditions to putting it on leaves Radha unsettled. To cope with this, Radha begins to rap. She connects with a producer and starts to gain confidence in this new medium. When an open mic goes wrong, then changes overtake to happen to her play, Radha must figure out whether she'll crumble or fight for herself. There is so much to attack from this film. It's ironic because the plot itself was so simple – yet I think that is why I felt so moved by it as a whole because it didn't try to be something it wasn't. First off, this whole film was shot at 35mm in complete black-and-white. This is a rare artistic choice these days. (The last movie I can think of that did this was Alfonso Cuarón's Roma.) In my opinion, I love films like this because you have no choice but to focus on the movie. There's no movement in terms of color, so there's no distraction. I was clued in, and it drew me in. I can't lie and say that it didn't remind me of the OG movies of the day like 1933's King Kong or iconic film Casablanca. Really called to movie's roots in being timeless to such a modern concept for today's Black woman. I could tell that a lot of this film was autobiographical for Blank. I'm pretty sure Real-Life Radha has felt like Movie Radha where she felt like a sellout and feared failure in herself. It brings out some commentary that needs to be addressed. Many Black creatives often have to bend on their vision to even dream of becoming successful. Movie Radha faces this personal dilemma of whether to stick true to her original vision of her play or to bend to the changes being 'suggested' to happen. While the overall movie doesn't rely on Black stereotypes, Movie Radha is forced to rely on said clichés for her play due to the white man bankrolling her project. It's a stark realization that most art coming from Black artists do not pander to a majority audience, but sometimes... it can. Which side is correct? I can't say since I'm the last person who should give that opinion, so I'll obviously leave that up to the individual. My only complaint I could give about this film was that at times I felt the moments dragged on too long. Does that mean the movie itself could also be too long? Maybe. I just wished some things were wrapped up sooner, but real-life conflicts and moral quandaries aren't solved in 30 minutes or less. As far as I'm aware, this is Radha Blank's directorial debut. What a way to start! My gut says this is not a one-off. Radha will be the one to watch for the future of Black content, but we will have to wait and see.
More importantly, when is "Poverty Porn" going to be on Spotify?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Candy JarThis is the place where I watch movies and then tell you what I think. Archives
November 2020
Categories
All
|