I almost didn’t post a review for this movie after watching it. I wasn’t sure how to address certain criticisms I had of the film without coming off as a pretentious white girl.

Beyond the Lights is a 2014 film directed and written by Gina Prince Bythewood. It stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as popstar Noni, and Nate Parker as police officer Kaz Nicol.

Raw plays a popstar, Noni, who got her start singing in talent shows at a young age. When she is first seen, she is living in London, with Macy, her single, white Mom who is trying to find a black hair salon to help her with Noni’s hair which she is struggling to take care of.

Noni’s hair becomes crucial to her throughout the film, as it shows her different personalities. After the hair salon, Noni goes to a talent competition where she sings Nina Simones “Blackbird”, stunning the crowd, but only gets runner up in favor of a white girl doing a bad, off-brand Shirely Temple impersonation.

Macy, Noni’s mother, leaves furious and tells Noni to break her runner up trophy. She instills the idea that there will be better awards, and the movie flashforwards to the future.

We see an older, more mature looking Noni at an award show where she is wearing a blond wig presumably something the record label had her do to make her more palatable to white audiences. She is also the backup singer for a white rapper named Kid Culprit played by musician Machine Gun Kelly. It was at this point I realized how long it had been since 2014, and felt old.

Noni has just won an award at the Billboard music awards. She celebrates with her friends, which is unusual because she doesn’t drink. But when they get back to the hotel, she asks for a moment for herself, and Macy, her mom, finds her on the balcony.

The police officer guarding her door is officer Kaz Nicol, an up-and-coming political candidate (I believe for police commissioner of LA? But I didn’t catch it). He helps Noni off the balcony, but she slips, and the press catches it.

He manages to save her, but Noni is clearly not fine. The pressures of growing up in the world of entertainment are catching up to her, and she is struggling right before she is about to release her first album. She is getting lost in trying to find out if she still wants to be a singer and who she actually is, and that’s how she ends up on the balcony.

Macy hurries Noni away and makes Noni promise that she’s okay. Kaz’s father, who also has worked for Noni before, gives him hush money from Macy and the record label.

Kaz, since he has a political future to worry about, isn’t interested in bribes or interviews even though he could help further his career. He seems to be actually interested in Noni, and her well-being. The two of them connect, and start hanging out together.

However, Macy doesn’t like his influence over her daughter, as he’s someone that she can’t control.

Noni and Kaz embark on a whirlwind relationship, and nobody is happy about it, especially not Kid Culprit who proceeds to humiliate Noni at an award show by trying to rip off her clothes on stage after she breaks up with him and she brings Kaz. Kaz ends up in a fight with him, and the two head to Mexico to get away from the heat.

Noni is seen in multiple wigs throughout the film. First, the blond one at the Billboards. Then, a purple one later. While hiding in Mexico with Kaz, she lets her natural hair show and is able to walk around without being recognized for the most part until the couple do karaoke. Noni covers “Blackbird” by Nina Simone, and someone records her. It goes viral, bringing press to her door, and thrusting Noni back into the spotlight.

Her mother tells her that the record label, who was iffy about putting out Noni’s album because of the balcony incident, are now back on board and that they want her to cover “Blackbird”. Noni wants to do original songs, but her mother isn’t fully on board with the idea although she acts as though she is.

Back in LA, Noni and her mother discuss the album after meeting with executives, and Noni again brings up the idea of her writing original songs and working with Ryan Tedder (who famously worked with Taylor Swift. Very 2014). And Macy backtracks the idea, saying they need to get the album out as soon as possible.

Noni fires her mother as her manager, explaining that she’s not comfortable with the image her mother has pushed on her as the “sexy popstar” and wants to do things differently. She also goes on the record with a news show and talks about her mental health journey. She is also seen wearing her natural hair a lot after she takes control of her own identity.
Eventually, she goes back to England to perform at Brixton, where she is from. She performs her own song, and Kaz shows up for her. The two end up together, happily.

There were a lot of themes addressed in this movie that made me want to still review it. The first being the ongoing conversation of the danger’s young performers in the entertainment industry face at being exploited. Second, both Noni and Kaz are people trying to do what their parents want. Noni in trying to get ahead in a music industry that does not support artists, especially not black women, and Kaz in his career as a police officer where he’s not really sure if he wants that future for himself. I would have liked to have seen more conversations surrounding the complications of being a black police officer, but they left it at him not wanting to be like his father, and since it is a romance, I get why they didn’t want to go too heavy on that.

While the romance is a key part in the movie, Noni’s story as a young, black pop star trying to find her voice is by far the most interesting part of the journey. That said, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Nate Parker do have excellent chemistry in this film, and they are a joy to watch together. You get really caught up in wondering if they’ll end up together or not.

I still would have liked Kaz a little more if he’d been just a security guard though instead of a cop, but y’know. Perspective. Would I watch Beyond the Lights again? Yeah, but mostly because Noni’s the coolest part in it, and I’m obsessed with a good fictional popstar film.