‘On the Come Up’ Review: Cool and Confident Sanaa Lathan’s Directing Debut

Somewhere in Garden Heights, a fictional American city downtown let’s go up, is an impressive mural of Lawless, one of society’s greatest rappers. Her daughter Bree Jackson (Jamila C. Gray), who goes by the name Lil’Lou, often visits this powerful portrait when she needs guidance. It is an exercise in meditation, a form of concentration. Bree is determined to become one of the best rappers in the Heights, just like her father.

let’s go upSanaa Lathan’s calm, confident directorial debut follows a 16-year-old’s journey to stardom and honors her late father’s legacy. The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be released on Paramount+ on September 23, is based on the novel of the same name by Angie Thomas. Thomas, whose first novel the hate you give He’s also been given the big-screen treatment, becoming something of a modern bard to young black men over the years, sensitively telling his coming-of-age stories. Her styles may not be new (she works in the same lexicon as her sister Soulja), but they caught the attention of the zeitgeist.

Lathan’s adaptation, written by Kay Oyegun, captures the youthful touch and poetry of Thomas’ novel. let’s go up It’s a comprehensive narrative about family, chasing dreams and maintaining integrity that is sure to find fans among younger audiences. Even when it piles up on clichés and becomes too dependent on necessary melodramatic bits, the film doesn’t let up.

There are few places where Bree is comfortable. But when she stands in front of her father’s mural and plays with the gold necklace he gave her before he died, she can momentarily forget her clothing worries. Her mother Jay (played by Lathan), a recovering heroin addict, is months behind on rent and electricity. Her brother Trey (Titus McKinney) tries to help him, but his job at a pizzeria doesn’t pay him much. At school, Bree and her best friends Malik (Michael Cooper Jr.) and Sonny (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) face constant surveillance from security, whom they consider more suspicious than the rest of the white students.

Rap is another solution. Standing in the ring at a local boxing center where aspiring and established rappers come to battle, Brie takes on a different personality. Her lyrics, written here by North Carolina rapper Rapsody, display a smooth flow and verbal prowess. Her performance doubles as a release valve for the pressure around her. When he enters the zone, he goes up.

let’s go up It starts with Bree trying to fight M-Dot (GaTa), a local rapper, but the young woman is strangled before the competition starts. Prompted by M-Dot with the news of her mother’s heroin addiction and her father’s death, Bree runs offstage instead of spitting. Behind her is her manager and her aunt, Pooh (the amazing Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who try to remind Bree that failure is part of the process. She encourages her niece to never give up, which is one of the recurring lessons in the film.

Brie tries to find out and eventually returns to the ring, but her return is bittersweet. The day after her fight with M-Dot, Bree physically assaulted one of the school’s security guards. Citing Bree’s “aggressive” behavior and her history of selling contraband (candy) on school property, school officials suspended her. To make matters worse, Jay lost his church job due to budget cuts. With her fragile reality shaking, Brie bends her rap dreams. He returns to the ring and wins a fight against Miles (Michael Cooper Jr.), a local favorite and superior (man of method) son of Lawless’s old manager. Epic Exchange rescues Bree and places her on the map.

The profile rise causes Bree to question Aunt Pooh’s ability to handle her. After a sticky situation, caused in part by a long fight with Pooh’s other gang, the young rapper is kicked out of the ring, Bree leaves her aunt and signs with Supreme. But there’s a downside to this cute business, especially when Supreme encourages a young rapper to write songs and adopt a persona that will satisfy rap’s biggest consumers: white suburban kids.

as an adaptation let’s go up It doesn’t have much narrative flexibility. Lathan is married to Thomas with a complicated history that doesn’t always translate perfectly on screen. There are parts of the movie — Brie’s feud with another female rapper, Sonny’s growing queer relationship, and even Brie’s own romantic escapades — that feel unprepared and deal with themes we’ll never return to. A film that is already nearly two hours long would take twice as long to fully flesh out these plot points, which rely on clichés and awkward expositions to fit the narrative.

let’s go up He finds his rhythm and is at his best when focusing on Bree’s struggles, especially the emotional ending and her relationship with her mother and Pooh. Rapsody’s smart and expressive lyrics deepen our understanding of Bree as she struggles to define herself amid familiar rumours. Each rap, delivered by Gray with fun, charming energy, represents a step in Bree’s growth into something she’s proud of. The same tenderness transpires in Bree’s relationship with her mother and Pooh, two women who approach and deal with their circumstances differently but share a commitment to Bree’s happiness and success: their emotionally fluid conversations lift the young teenager up when she more accurate and is challenged. When she thinks she isn’t, she helps Bree get closer to the person she wants to be.