There has been no shortage of hip-hop star-is-born narratives hitting screens in recent years, but much like hip-hop itself for most of its history, there hasn’t always been a whole lot of space for women. Sanaa Lathan’s “On the Come Up,” which tracks a teenage girl’s complicated rise through the battle rap circuit to the even more complicated heights of viral stardom, provides a welcome exception to this rule, but fortunately it has a lot more going for it than just that. As frank and tough-minded and as it is warm and sweet, “On the Come Up” is a hugely promising debut from the actor-turned-director.
Sixteen-year-old Bri (Jamila C. Gray) is already a talented rapper when we first meet her in her fictitious neighborhood of Garden Heights, and she’s already been through a whole lifetime’s worth of upheaval. Her father was a legendary local MC named Lawless, who was murdered just as his career was beginning to take off. She spent part of her childhood away from her mother (Lathan) while she battled drug addiction, and though she’s now clean, their mother-daughter bond has yet to fully mend. And what’s more, as part of the small contingent of Black students at her school, she’s forced to deal with unsympathetic administrators and suspicious campus cops, one of whom body-slams her to the ground after he spots her selling Skittles to a classmate.
Yet there’s nothing tragic or self-pitying about Bri, who has some big ambitions of her own to worry about. She wants to follow in her father’s footsteps under the rap name Lil Law, and as managed by her boisterous, drug-dealing Aunt Pooh (a tremendous Da’Vine Joy Randolph), she first sets her sights on Garden Heights’ cutthroat amateur scene. After a few false starts, her rhymes catch the attention of her father’s old manager, a now-wealthy impresario named Supreme (Cliff “Method Man” Smith), who recently scored a major record deal for another neighborhood up-and-comer (Lil Yachty, clearly enjoying himself). Against Aunt Pooh’s strongly-worded advice, Bri decides to hear him out.
Meanwhile, Bri navigates the remaining horrors of high school with her childhood friend Malik (Michael Cooper Jr.), who is brutally honest about everything except for the fact that he clearly has a crush on her. And when her mother’s precarious employment situation starts to lead to “final notice” utility bills, Bri’s rap battle winnings make her the family’s temporary breadwinner, introducing yet another uncomfortable dose of tension into their already tenuous relationship.
Adapted from “The Hate U Give” author Angie Thomas’ second novel, the screenplay sometimes struggles to keep all of its various threads woven together – Bri’s battles with her school district tend to recede from view for long stretches, only to surprise you when they reemerge with force – but Lathan imbues the film with a certain looseness that gives these ebbs and flows the feeling of real life. Subtler moments are given space to breathe, characters are allowed to make mistakes without those mistakes defining their characters, and Lathan’s emphasis on the grey shades within the film’s broader conflicts helps elevate the story above its more formulaic elements. As often happens in these sorts of narratives, Bri is eventually forced to make a choice between careerism and artistic integrity, but even here the film is well attuned to how fine the line can be between selling out and playing the game, and how unpredictable the consequences of either decision can be.
But what really ties “On the Come Up” together is Bri, who always feels like a fully-fleshed character even as she braves these familiar narrative hurdles. She’s neither an uber-confident force-of-nature, nor a “who, me?” wallflower. At times she’s grounded and wise beyond her years, at others she’s naïve and even thoughtless. In other words, she’s definitely 16 years old, and the film is smart about the ways that precocious talent and age-appropriate immaturity can easily coexist. Newcomer Gray does wonderfully in the role, keeping the character’s prickly edges and underlying vulnerability in delicate balance throughout, while tackling the performance scenes like a pro. (Cult hip-hop artist Rapsody penned the film’s rhymes, and she gives us plenty of rewind-worthy lines to digest.)
The acting is inspired all around, from Cooper’s shy, marble-mouthed charm, to Method Man’s surprisingly nuanced take on a music industry hustler – he may be cynical and untrustworthy, but he lets you see exactly where his cold calculation comes from. And yet Lathan saves one of the film’s trickiest roles for herself, bringing both flintiness and sensitivity to a character forced to walk a tightrope between asserting parental authority over her daughter, and winning back her affection after countless mistakes. Lathan has assembled an admirable body of work in the two decades since her breakout in “Love & Basketball,” but between her dual roles here and her recent first Emmy nomination for “Succession,” it feels like the wider industry might finally be starting to recognize the full scope of her talents. If so, it’s long overdue.
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