Excellence Begins at 40

You can’t talk to anybody these days who isn’t looking for something to feel good about.  Lots of us are homing in on Christmas as that jolt of joy that’ll ease the weight of this oppressive and thriving pandemic.  We won’t even mention the stifling political angst that’s griped the country for months.  But there’ve been other patches of relief popping up unexpectedly that are relished as much for their surprise as their welcome punch of pleasure.   Radha Blank’s wonderful The 40-Year- Old Version nestles nicely into that welcome category.  Hanging out in Netflix’s movie stream since October, the just over 2-hour movie follows a jazzy self-deprecating underdog as she fights her way to recognition as a playwright in New York.  Black, female and about to cross that big four zero birthday, nothing about this striver follows the familiar script. She just happens to be the fictionalized “version” of Blank herself who stars and directs the production.

Shot on film and in black and white, the effect is beautiful, elegant and as Blank herself describes it, “mouthwatering”.   It’s so pretty you can almost taste it.  But, as Tambay Obensen points out in his IndieWire interview with Blank, the beauty of the filming contrasts with, and is a loving complement to the gritty cityscapes of Harlem and Brooklyn.      

The list of things that make this movie so comfortable and nourishing are many. You can start with the panorama of electrifying characters swirling through Radha’s tumultuous life who dazzle in their variety and are all deliciously interesting on their own.  The cosmopolitan nature of a city like New York makes that possible as does grounding this charming and deceptively no so light drama in the world of the arts; that haven of creativity and misfits. The combination of place, clever resourceful people and, for Radha, the ever-present specter of failure keeps the sense of anticipation running at full speed throughout.   

Radha’s kinetic relationships with Archie, her agent and best friend from high school; D, her out of left field all of a sudden boyfriend and her drama students make you want to step into her shoes for just a little while and live that kind of life that blazes so brightly with intense stimulation.  It can sometimes be painful but also incredibly restorative. 

Peter Kim as Archie is the kind of steadfast friend who’ll lay it on the line to force you to see yourself for who you are one second and be there when nobody else will the next.  The kind of friend who’ll extend a sexual favor if he thinks it’ll help promote your career.  The dynamic between the two of them says so much about what real friendship is; honesty standing on a bedrock of love. Even though it shouldn’t be unusual, it still feels a little revolutionary to see such a healthy relationship between minorities in this country.    

Blank likes to go to unexpected places in her work and the way she puts this story together proves it’s a winning approach.  Some of us have always wondered how playwrights get picked to perform their work and how decisions get made about rewrites and director selection.  It’s can be an ugly process.   The soul of the writer can take a beating if the goal is simply to get the play on a stage, any stage.  Fortunately, in this story, it can also be amusing in a tender kind of way as we watch Radha swallow her pride and let her labor love become diminished and warped to appease a savvy and shrewd producer, played so effectively here by Josh Whitman as Reed Birney. 

The question that keeps building as we watch her play move closer and closer to reality is will she’ll be able to stomach the toxicity of compromises.  While we wonder, we get to see how a woman moving from youth to middle age navigates a classroom full of kids who’re shamelessly bright and nearly as world wise as their teacher.  Haskiri Velazquez as Rosa and Imani Lewis as Elaine may front a whole lot of fierce but they’re still young girls struggling to feel their way to womanhood.  We love watching the beauty of their energy and listening to the way they assess each other and their dope drama teacher. 

Falling back to an early attraction to and an enjoyment in rapping, Radha also indulges another of her fantasies by boldly moving into a hip-hop space.  Adopting the handle of Radhamus Prime, she intrigues and is eventually seduced by the beat thrower, D (Oswin Benjamin).  A much younger man with a headful of thick braids and tons of Brooklyn suave, he’s the essence of understated cool and the perfect ballast for Radha’s visible but unspoken insecurities.  It’s the kind of romance you don’t see enough of on either the big or small screen and you want to frolic in it like a 5-year-old in a splash pool.  Ever keen to elude the expected and the trite, the movie’s ending manages to inspire for its bravery and heart.   Winning a Sundance prize for her directorial skills on this project, we can’t wait to see what other stories blossom from Blank’s beautifully textured imagination.  

The 40-Year-Old-Version

Netflix