Writer-director-stand-up-comedian Chris Rock has created a frustrating film that showcases a great actor in Slow Horses' Rosalind Eleazer in the eponymous lead role.
To start with the positive, Chris is willing to go there. He is willing to talk about the reality of Hollywood for women of a certain age and ambiguous racial heritage. He shows just how excruciating and demoralising the casting process can be, and how even highly talented and formerly successful stars like Misty Green can find themselves struggling financially and forced to yacht. Let's just say that as an avid reader of DeuxMoi and Enty, I *never* thought I would see actors being paid by rich men for their services would be shown on the big screen. And yet that's the framing dilemma for Misty. She has a week to leave the apartment she's been crashing in and no money. She gets a shot at landing a big part. But she is constrained by her own self-destructive behaviour, and her obligations toward her bipolar brother (Daniel Kaluuya). Meanwhile her "friend" Zach (Adam Driver) offers her the chance to earn 300k for one night with a Sheikh. And her best friend Naomi (Anna Kendrick) shows the other option: marry for financial security.
The complication of the script is that it's not just that Misty is in a sexist, racist environment that is designed to undercut her. She also has a fierce temper and is taking a lot of drugs and seems to bite every hand that tries to feed her. And while this creates a really complex character and allows Rosalind Eleazer to give a fantastic, and award-worthy, performance, one does wonder whether the script verges on the misogynistic. Another major negative is that Rock just cannot get out of his way. He plays a director called Jordan who has a long history with Misty. But Jordan isn't a character as much as a vehicle for Rock to do stand-up skits. They're funny, but they definitely pulled me out of the film. I also feel that Rock's script doesn't know how to balance humour and gravity more broadly. There's a key third act plot point that involves a long-running gag with a plastic spider. That was a jump the shark moment for me.
MISTY GREEN is rated 15 and has a running time of 1hr 43m. It played Toronto and was released last week in the USA.
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