Review of Beyond the Lights

It's refreshing that Beyond the Lights delves into social commentary criticizing the music industry for over sexualizing most of its female artists and exploiting the image of sex sells and the artists' creative control on their own music and image is shelved away because the music executives believe they won't be as successful because of it. And how it depicts the music industry as being greedy and how fame, press, and PR stigmatizes and demeans addressing real mental health issues celebrities/public figures have. Gugu Mbatha-Raw gives another captivating lead performance as Noni and her chemistry with Nate Parker, police officer Kaz, is pleasant but there's a certain ingredient missing to the overarching romance between these two main characters. Yes, there's substance and drive for their romance together (he sees her authentic identity past the fame and she loves him because he's not famous and he's down-to-earth etc. It just feels like the way the romance and love story gets stale before the end credits show up. That is faulty screenwriting and no indicator of the presence of lack of chemistry the actors have which they don't have this problem. Additionally, the last half's plot device conflict is so shoehorned in it was like written in as an afterthought and really lowers the impact of the two characters reconciling and reuniting at the end. Despite this, Beyond the Lights is a recommended romance drama film for a one-time watch.