Misty Green, 2026.
Written and Directed by Chris Rock.
Starring Rosalind Eleazar, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick, Topher Grace, Chris Rock, Anthony Anderson, Kelli Garner, Amy Landecker, Rich Sommer, Ice-T, Tracie Thoms, Zaria, Parker Sack, Carlos Jacott, Yvonne Orji, Alexandra Shipp, Busta Rhymes, Necar Zadegan, and Nicole Ari Parker.
SYNOPSIS:
Years after her Hollywood breakthrough, a talented actress whose career has stalled fights for her second act.
Hollywood always deserves a good skewering. There is no denying that. However, writer/director Chris Rock’s Misty Green is a baffling exercise where every character is either a junkie, mentally ill, or self-destructive. That is, unless they are a supporting character played by none other than Chris Rock.
More baffling is that the premise, centered on stalled fictional Emmy-winning TV star, the eponymous Misty Green (Rosalind Eleazar, who nonetheless gets the occasional moment to shine in the film that requires her to do everything from behave on the verge of a breakdown to beautifully sing) looking for a spotlight resurgence, is ripe enough for convincing industry drama. Instead, Chris Rock feels compelled to toss in an array of supporting characters, each with their own baggage and loaded predicaments, until it quickly becomes so much that none of it feels credible to Hollywood or real people. To an unintentionally comic degree, everyone is a train wreck here.
Found living in her dead partner’s home, wife Celine (Amy Landecker) insists that Misty vacate the premises immediately. She can’t stand this homewrecker and will sell the home, but she softens and shows some kindness (though not without casual racism) only after noticing the Emmy on the shelf and realizing who she is talking to. As such, Misty is given seven days to sort out her life before going homeless, which is supposed to serve as an urgent ticking clock for the film (complete with reminders for each passing day) that ultimately amounts to zero tension, as the proceedings are too loose and freewheeling for any of that to make an impact.
Populating Misty’s inner circle are an agent played by Topher Grace (a thankless role), her adulterous best friend (Anna Kendrick), a film director (Chris Rock) stuck rebooting Dreamgirls with a lead who can’t sing while questioning why it has to be made now even though he admits to needing the money (now there is some interesting and seemingly personal Hollywood criticism that could have been expanded upon further) who would rather give his former collaborator a second chance, a celebrity drug addict (Adam Driver) offering more salacious means to make money fast, and a schizophrenic brother (Daniel Kaluuya) who was just released from a psychiatric ward.
The result is an uninteresting film (a wild criticism given what’s happening) that sees Misty jeopardize every opportunity she gets to do drugs. Sure, it’s not their movie, but none of the other characters do anything beyond serving as caricatures, with the schizophrenic brother being the most offensively bad of them all. He comes across less as a character and more as a means to cause more drama for Misty and extend the running time by about 20 minutes, while also getting into altercations with a Black police officer (Anthony Anderson, who is certainly getting a bit of a second chance here following some sordid accusations leveled at him, which adds in a potential gripe about cancel culture under the surface).
Even Chris Rock’s filmmaking is straight-up amateurishly bad here and embarrassing for a film being released by a major distributor in A24, with a scene taking place inside a restaurant cutting off dialogue to go to the next reverse shot; it’s a conversation chopped up to the point of distraction and not making sense anymore. Themes such as homelessness in Los Angeles are tackled head-on without nuance, but without much point either, other than to contrast it with some of the richest people in the country (for example, a shot of Topher Grace’s agent shooing away a displaced man begging for spare change).
None of this incompetence and scattershot nature helps a film that is already flailing. Misty Green certainly doesn’t have any likable characters, which would be fine if there were charged energy or something matching their irresponsibility and recklessness, and there’s no reason to take umbrage at a filmmaker letting out their hatred for the industry. The real crippling issue: how dull and overwrought it all is.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
