In every scene here, Prince-Bythewood calmly and sensitively melts our resistance to the outlandish, outsized quality of her plot and stays true to the message she wants to deliver without ever getting pious or preachy.
Beyond the Lights
Open your heart, find your voice.
2014 · 1h 56m · PG-13
Drama, Romance
Directed by
Gina Prince-Bythewood
Overview
Noni Jean is a hot new rising star. But not all is what it seems, and the pressure causes Noni to nearly fall apart - until she meets Kaz Nicol, a promising young cop and aspiring politician who's been assigned to her detail. Can Kaz's love give Noni the courage to find her own voice and break free to become the artist she was meant to be?
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Has the elements of a classic backstage story, but they don't quite crystallize into an integral drama.
It's a movie about a rising superstar that features two of them-Mbatha-Raw and Parker, both enormously appealing, impossibly attractive performers with big futures ahead of them.
"Beyond the Lights" is a faint shadow of 1992's "The Bodyguard," without the star power of Whitney Houston or Kevin Costner.
Director Prince-Bythewood, who made the move from television to the big-screen in 2000 with the terrific romance Love and Basketball has a way with actors.
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