Nelli (Pamela Tola), the daughter of a bourgeois family, dreams of an RnB singing career but is pressured by her family to apply for med school instead. One day she meets Sune (Samuli Vauramo), a reserved and idealistic hip hop DJ who refuses to sell his music out to a big record company even if it means he can't make a living by making music. Nelli asks Sune if he can help her to write some songs for her demo CD, and after an awkward beginning they start getting along and liking each other better. However, Nelli's rich family and her boyfriend Mikko (Jussi Nikkilä) aren't happy about her new career plans.
The movie was originally praised as one of the best Finnish films in a long time and received a bunch of nominations for the Jussi Awards, a.k.a. "the Finnish Oscars" – something that baffled me then and still does after a rewatch. The romantic plot is completely ordinary and clichéd, and the expected criticisms of the greedy music industry are hardly original either. Even though some of the songs on the soundtrack (composed by Jukka Immonen with lyrics by rappers like Elastinen and Asa, among others) are catchy, it's hard to hear how Sune's beats or Nelli's singing are 'underground' or particularly impressive in any way.
In spite of its obvious unoriginality, Tyttö sinä olet tähti (literally "Girl You Are a Star" – I wonder who came up with the English name "Beauty and the Bastard") is not a terrible movie by any means. The lead actors Tola and Vauramo are convincing in their roles and Sune's foulmouthed rapper friends Kondis and Isukki (Joonas Saartamo and Eero Milonoff) are hilarious throughout. I also enjoyed the many real-life rapper cameos, even if most of them are very difficult to spot without knowing where to look. In the end, the film is probably best suited for younger viewers who haven't yet become jaded by the conventions of the romance genre. Fans of Finnish hip hop should also find it entertaining enough.
