The Forty-Year-Old Version

Radha, a screenwriter in her 40's, living day by day, without anything significant in her career, sees in rap music a way to rediscover herself, under the name RadhaMUSPrime.

A dramatic comedy that does its job: makes you laugh, and also reflect and think about life, at different moments.

The narrative is based on the feeling that currently many pre-adults/adults tend to think over and over again, which is their role in society, in the form of professional fulfillment, and on a personal level, like "will I be remembered as a good person?" while struggling with inner demons.

The sarcasm used is well applied, and stands out in the characters who use it.

The black and white photography makes sense, as we are being guided to the end of the film and we see the "bigger picture".

The social critic, about gentrification and the shallow and hypocrite social support by the upper classes in a pretentious way is one of my favorite parts.

Radka is a playwright who has somewhat fallen from grace since her first success and as she approaches 40 is having a sort of mid-life crisis - what is she about? What's it all for? How can she become fulfilled? Well - indefatigable, she goes about setting herself up as a rapper and it becomes quite clear to "D" - the young base track layer that she has some skill at it. He even presuades her to do a live gig so perhaps her rather hum-drum, routine, existence might be about to change for the better... ? Well, simultaneously her agent "Archie" (Peter Kim) is trying to get the rather seedy, gay casting-couch merchant "J Whitman" (Reed Birney) to produce her play and the film juggles her rapping and writing aspirations set against her day-job teaching a disparate bunch of students with attitude and talent - but both need to be controlled! At it's best, this is great - the rapping is potent and poetic; the comedy can be funny - if somewhat predictable; and she is an engaging and likeable character. It is, however, far too long and auteur Blank struggles to maintain the pace and focus of the film for much of what just turns out to be a fairly ordinary tale of a single woman trying to recalibrate. I enjoyed it, but it really could have been doing with a more objective hand at the helm.

I very much enjoyed this movie. The female lead, who also wrote and directed the movie, tells a funny if sad story of a middle-aged black playwright who cannot get her works produced until she finally agrees to sell out and rewrite one of her works to make it conform to the East Side white liberal view of what Harlem must be like. (Imagine the world of New York East Side pseudo-intellectuals that Woody Allen has been lampooning for decades.) Her compromised play succeeds - with an audience of white East Side intellectuals - and then she has to decide where to go from there.

There are wonderful scenes in this movie. There were others that didn't hold me.

I wish more time could have been devoted to how the original play was changed/compromised during rehearsals.

Still, I definitely recommend this movie.

This movie is absolutely fantastic. It may be 2 hours long but it felt like 1 hour 20. Charming and amusing from start to finish. Really good comedic acting, great direction, full of brilliant one liners and if this was the 90s I'd be buying that OST on cd. 100% a must watch.

As a 70-year-old white guy I got to say: wasn't too sure this would be my cup of tea. So glad I saw a high meta score and gave it a shot. It covered so much ground. The star and the supporting cast were fabulous. great humor. Enjoy the movie !!