Patti Cake$
Cert: 15 / 109 mins / Dir. Geremy Jasper / Trailer
Feeling once again like a movie which we should be getting in October's release-schedule, writer/director Geremy Jasper brings us Patti Cake$, a drama about a 23yr old waitress and family-carer (Danielle Macdonald) in smalltown New Jersey who wants to break free of the downward-spiral she sees as her life, becoming a successful rapper. With singer Jerry (Siddharth Dhananjay) and guitarist/mixer Basterd (Mamoudou Athie), the beleaguered Patti tries to puncture the membrane separating club-level, street acts and more successful, recognised performers. But competition is plentiful and life rarely lets you pursue your dreams without obstacle…
While Patti Cake$ is set against a backdrop of hip-hop, the strokes of the story are fairly broad, examining confidence, obligation and the legacy of failure in a family of coulda-made-its. This isn't quite the relentlessly gritty tale of social angst that the trailer makes out out to be, although that's definitely the primary ingredient. Underneath the raw contemporary feel, what we get is actually a fairly formulaic underdog story; Jasper also telegraphs the turns quite broadly, adding to the feeling that this isn't all it could be.
The cast give solid performances all round and the music marries up with the story perfectly, but they're not quite enough to save the coulda-made-it screenplay, building to a crescendo that the film doesn't quite earn. Maybe it's my own fault for loving that trailer and believing the pull-quotes telling me how fantastic it was. I thoroughly enjoyed Patti Cake$, but it didn't over-perform like I'd hoped it would. I wanted to be blown away, I was only swept along. Then again, I can hardly blame Geremy Jasper for my expectations…
With a movie about creative drive and the hunger to put your own unique musical stamp on the world, I probably shouldn't have come out of the cinema with Heart stuck in my head…
The aspiration of Sing Street with the urban decay of The Transfiguration...
While it's not typical 'big screen' fare, I think the film's sincerity will come over better in that format.
Just about.
Really couldn't say, on that front.
Not at all.
Not at all.
Level 2: This film stars Bridget Everett, who was in 2012's Gayby along with Adam 'Kylo' Driver.
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