The 40-Year-Old Version (2020) is the directorial debut of playwright Radha Blank, who also writes and stars in the film. The comedy follows a fictionalized version of herself as she struggles to make it as a hip-hop artist in New York City. The film won the Best Director award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival before dropping on Netflix this past weekend. Is this the world’s introduction to a fresh new voice in entertainment?
Every once in a while, a movie makes me self-aware of what I am doing when I review films. Whenever films tackle the relationship between the artist and the audience as this film so obviously does, I am forced to reckon with the fact that I am judging another human being’s artistry. I can nitpick and point to obvious flaws all day long, but the bottom line is that Radha Blank put years of hard work and passion into a project that I casually watched in a single afternoon. This is exacerbated by the fact that I’m a white man and Blank is a black woman who has spent her life catering to the whims of people like me while yearning to tell stories for a more diverse audience. So I will attempt to be cognizant of that fact as I try to dissect this film, knowing that ultimately I am in the crosshairs here and the butt of the joke. As much as this is a story of a tenacious black woman coming into her own, it’s also an indictment of white privilege when it comes to art – and Blank does this very, very well!
The film interweaves three separate storylines, each tackling a different issue the fictional Radha deals with in her life. First you have the relationship with the white theater producer Whitman, who forces her to cater to a more white audience with her desired all-black play about gentrification. Then you have her efforts at a music career with beats producer D, embodying her desire to be an artist at all costs. Then there is her class full of theater students – her “backup” life, the one she fell into unwillingly after failing at her dreams of fame and fortune. Execution of these subplots aside, the way they fit together is extremely well-considered and always services the greater story of Radha’s life. Not a single scene is out of place, and every moment develops her character further, exposing some insecurity or dissatisfaction she tries to keep contained. In that respect, the film does an excellent job of rendering Blank’s internal thoughts external – no easy task for a film to pull off.
The highlights for me were definitely the rapping sequences where Blank finally gets to let loose and spew out everything that bothers her about the world and her place within it. Again, it’s a prime opportunity to take Radha’s thoughts and vocalize them for the audience (literally), and Blank does not waste it. Not only are her verses straight fire and a ton of fun to listen to, they always develop her character further and speak the unspoken to get the audience up to speed. We might see Radha interacting with her white theater producer in one scene and deduce her frame of mind from the subtext, but there’s only so much you can do non-verbally there. Only once she steps into the booth and starts dropping bars do we fully understand the pressures and frustrations bubbling under the surface in her mind. That isn’t to say the rapping is a “cheat” intended to deliver exposition – no, Blank still uses nonverbal communication very well to develop character. Radha’s character still gets to speak her mind through various outlets, such as the play she’s developing and the advice she doles out to eager students. Blank gets to have her cake and eat it too: utilizing an easy device to externalize Radha’s thoughts while putting in the work to develop character in subtler ways too.
I also enjoyed her relationship with music producer D, which flies in the face of convention in several ways. When we first meet D we think we understand how this dynamic is going to go: he’ll be the callous, misogynistic, ageist roadblock to her attempts at success and she slowly has to win him over. But from the opening moments we learn the opposite is true: he’s reserved, thoughtful, and open-minded about what she’s trying to do. You can do wonders to make me like a character by giving them a simple act of kindness to perform, and D gets this early on as we learn how he watched Blank walk to the train station late at night to make sure she got home safely. From that moment on I was as in love with the character as Blank herself was! The film further subverts expectation by having Blank doubt her own abilities with D playing catalyst for her to continue pursuing her dreams. I felt like maybe he was a bit too over-eager in his efforts to get her back in the music game, which felt a tad unrealistic, but it still works. Ultimately the message is that Radha is the biggest obstacle in her own path, and Blank does a great job of conveying that message through her character’s journey.
Not all of the side characters get ample development, and as a result many didn’t feel all that authentic to me. A glaring example is Radha’s students: often we would learn one key trait of theirs early on and then never see that early perception of them challenged throughout the film. They are largely unchanging, given little development of their own besides their interactions with Radha. That’s mostly forgivable, however, because Radha is the focal point of the story and she is the one with the key arc of change. Much of the film sees her reacting to the punches the world throws at her, so while there might be some caricatures in the background they are meant more as a conglomeration of the difficulties she faces in life than as individuals to be focused on. The few side characters we do get to know – namely D and Archie – get plenty of time to grow and evolve along with Radha. They are the two exceptions to the rule, the two people Radha learns from rather than learning things herself. It’s not so much that certain characters felt underdeveloped – rather, Blank knows which characters need more development than others because of their unequal importance to the plot. She sacrifices a touch of authenticity for narrative resonance, and I can respect that.
The dialogue also rings slightly untrue at times, as though Radha is more interested in the wordplay than in emulating authentic speech. I chock it up to Blank’s background as a playwright, as theater is a much more performative medium that has to seek ways to keep a live audience engaged. And I totally get the sentiment – for a film that purports to be a comedy-drama, it’s important to keep the audience laughing every few minutes or the drama overpowers it. So again, it’s an example of the film getting the big-picture stuff right (structure, timing, etc.) but feeling just slightly off in the small-picture/immersive stuff. Ultimately it didn’t bother me that much however, in part for the reasons stated above, but also because the film exists in a state of heightened reality, of semi-satire. We aren’t supposed to believe the characters around Radha are entirely real – they are caricatures, exaggerations of the types of bullshit she has to deal with on a daily basis. The more outlandish the world around Radha is, the more grounded and relatable her character becomes.
Conclusion
It’s hard to critique this film’s minor flaws without feeling like part of the smarmy white critic archetype that Blank mocks in the film. This film was not made to cater to my whims, nor should it have been – it’s an indictment of the white privilege that comes from a long history of judging and gatekeeping the artistry of black creators. And it accomplishes this very well, balancing a uniquely-structured story and wholly-original central character to create a consistently-entertaining story with a lot to say about the world. The character of Radha is very easy to root for, and her journey speaks volumes about the experience of black storytellers in a still-white-dominated sector. On top of this it’s also hilarious, well-paced and beautifully-shot – one of the most original films of the year, if not the past decade. I’m lukewarm on the execution at times, but for a directorial debut it’s fantastic and a star-making vehicle for one of the more exciting voices in entertainment. I hope Radha Blank continues to get opportunities to share her voice and eventually gains enough clout to tell me and my nitpicky opinions to fuck off.
VERDICT: A-
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-Austin Daniel
Scriptophile 