Beyond the Lights

Beyond the Lights is a superb example of how to make an old-fashioned romantic melodrama feel fresh and relevant to modern audiences. Writer/director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, The Secret Life of Bees) spins a classic backstage narrative: a talented young girl with dreams of stardom has to make her way in life with an overbearing stage-mother who measures her own self-worth through her daughter’s success. The formula is as old as Gypsy, but Prince-Bythewood knows exactly which genre conventions to embrace and which to avoid.  Gugu Mbatha-Raw, whose performance in this same year's Belle signified the arrival of an enchanting new actress, stars as Noni Jean. Minnie Driver, the talented but overlooked star of Circle of Friends (1995), Good Will Hunting (1997), and Barney’s Version ( 2010), plays the mother, Macy Jean. We learn that Macy was a poor, white, single mom in working-class London, frantically trying to raise her half-black daughter, Noni when she discovered the girl’s musical talent. From that point on, she manages her daughter’s career with an iron fist, plunging Noni facedown into the hyper-sexualized contemporary music industry.

The story proper begins just as Noni’s star is about to explode into the world of popular music. The young singer’s identity and sense of herself are dangerously unstable, with her image already heavily compromised and objectified. A chance encounter with a young, absurdly handsome and soulful cop (Nate Parker) leads Noni on a journey of self-discovery and personal fulfilment. While the film does not apologize for following the tropes and traditions of typical Hollywood romantic fantasy, it doesn’t feel saccharine or overly manipulative because the central character is so fully realized. The picture keeps us guessing about how scenes will turn out because, even though we’re seeing the events we expect to see in this type of movie, we haven’t seen this specific young woman navigate them before.

Beyond the Lights simultaneously enables the audience to make a powerful connection to Noni and to experience things in ways its characters can’t always see. From this omniscient perspective, the picture makes subtle but persuasive commentary about how women and girls are depicted in pop culture. Prince-Bythewood presents her feminist observations with no heavier a hand than she uses to steer us through her film’s genre conventions. The narrative beats and subtextual elements are there—and there for good reasons—but they never break the fantasy spell the movie casts for us. We get so few sincere, unapologetic, non-ironic romances from Hollywood these days that when one finally appears it seems almost revolutionary.

Beyond the Lights also feels fresh for a mainstream studio picture because it creates a youthful yet never condescending romance between two black characters. The temptation to make the male lead white must have been difficult for the film’s producers to overcome. It’s easy to envision this picture going the way of The Bodyguard—the dismal romantic thriller with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston that was a runaway hit with both white and black audiences in 1992. The dramatic focus would undoubtedly have shifted to the male lead were he played by an established white male movie star. Here, though Nate Parker’s ambitious and intelligent Kaz is a fully realized character with his own story arc, his role is secondary. Like Driver’s demanding mother, Parker’s passionate boyfriend is an important player in Noni’s story, but it’s how Noni navigates these relationships that constitute the narrative. Mbatha-Raw’s chemistry with both her costars is palpable. Beyond the Lights presents a refreshingly adult take on young, female identity and empowerment that never feels moralistic, labored or simplistic, yet still delivers an uplifting Hollywood fairytale romance.