There has been no shortage of hip-hop-star-born novels hitting the screens in recent years, but like hip-hop itself for most of its history, there hasn’t always been much room for women. Sana Lathan’s “On the Come Up,” which traces the complex rise of a teenage girl through the rap circuit to the more intricate heights of viral stardom, offers a welcome exception to this rule, but fortunately has a lot more to it than just this. Candid, tough, warm, and kind, “On the Come Up” is a very promising start from actor-turned-director.
Sixteen-year-old Brie (beautiful C Gray) is already a talented rapper when we first met her in her fictional Garden Heights neighborhood, and she’s already gone through lifelong turmoil. Her father was a legendary local MC named Lawless, who was completely murdered when his career began to take off. She spent part of her childhood away from her mother (Lathan) while battling drug addiction, and although she is clean now, the mother-daughter bond is not yet fully repaired. What’s more, as part of the small group of black students at her school, she is forced to deal with unsympathetic administrators and suspicious campus police, one of whom slapped her on the ground after seeing that she was selling Skittles to a classmate.
However, there is nothing tragic or self-pitying about Brie, who has some big ambitions of her own to worry about. She wants to follow in her father’s footsteps under the rap name Lil Law, and as run by her boisterous and drug-trafficking aunt (the formidable Da’Vine Joy Randolph), she sets her sights first on the amateur scene in Garden Heights. After a few false starts, her songs caught the attention of her father’s old boss, a now wealthy manager named Supreme (Cliff “Method Man” Smith), who recently scored a big record deal for another up-and-coming neighborhood (Lil’ Yachting, obviously enjoying himself). Against Aunt Pooh’s stern advice, Bri decides to listen.
Meanwhile, Brie navigates the remaining high school horrors with her childhood friend Malik (Michael Cooper Jr.), who is very honest about everything except for the fact that he clearly likes her. And when her mother’s precarious work situation begins to pay utility bills for “final notice,” Brie’s gains in the rap battle make her the family’s temporary breadwinner, introducing another uncomfortable dose of tension into their already tenuous relationship.
Adapted from Angie Thomas’ second novel, “The Hate U Give,” the script sometimes struggles to keep all of its different threads woven together — Bri’s fights with her school district tend to fall out of sight for long stretches, only to be surprised when he reappears strong — but Lathan lends The movie has some loosening that gives these tides a real life feel. Delicate moments are given breathing space, characters are allowed to make mistakes without those mistakes defining their characters, and Lathan’s focus on shades of gray in the film’s broader struggles helps elevate the story above its more formulaic elements. As often happens in these types of novels, Bri is ultimately forced to choose between professional integrity and artistic integrity, but even here the film is well aligned with how fine the line is between selling and playing the game, and how unpredictable the consequences of any decision can be.
But what ties “On the Come Up” together is Bri, who always feels like a full-bodied character even as she braves these familiar narrative obstacles. It’s not an Uber-confident force of nature, nor “Who am I?” flower. Sometimes she is ingrained and wise beyond her years, other times she is naive and even thoughtless. In other words, she’s definitely 16, and the movie is smart about the ways she can easily coexist with early talent and age-appropriate maturity. Newcomer Gray does a great job in the role, keeping the character’s thorny edges and underlying weakness in delicate balance throughout, while approaching performance scenes like a pro. (Rhapsody, a hip-hop artist, penned the film’s songs, and it gives us plenty of lines worth rewinding to absorb.)
The acting is inspired by everything, from Cooper’s shy, marble-mouthed charm to the man’s surprising approach to a music industry hustler – he may be sarcastic and untrustworthy, but he lets you know exactly where his cold accounts come from. However, Lathan reserves one of the film’s toughest roles for herself, bringing serenity and sensitivity to a character who is forced to walk a tightrope between asserting parental authority over her daughter, and regaining her affection after countless mistakes. Lathan has amassed an impressive array of work in the past two decades since her “Love & Basketball” breakout, but between her dual roles here and her recent Emmy nomination for “Succession,” it seems like the broader industry is finally beginning to recognize the full range of her talents. If so, it was long overdue.
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