Misty Green review – Chris Rock’s jumbled LA drama saved by fiery Rosalind Eleazar

Toronto film festival: There’s a stunning lead performance from the breakout British actor but the film surrounding her can’t quite match what she’s bringing There’s a mighty, all-guns-blazing performance at the centre of Chris Rock ’s cynical Hollywood-set spiral Misty Green, a spark of fire almost put out by the relative dampness of the film surrounding.

British actor Rosalind Eleazar, best known for her work in Slow Horses , has probably vaulted herself into a strangely underpopulated best actress race with her turn as a struggling actor trying to grapple her way back to the middle. Eleazar does enough here to go much higher.

Misty has an Emmy for her role on still beloved TV series Red Eye but it sits on the shelf of an apartment paid for by a married, and recently deceased, benefactor, right next to the empty liquor bottles and a rolled-up bill used for last night’s cocaine. The film throws us into her final week there, as a brittle, short-tempered widow (Amy Landecker) gives her seven days to find somewhere else to live, not easy in a city like LA and even harder when she’s unable to find work.

Her lack of employment is both a result of an industry that doesn’t have a place for someone like her (she’s “too black to be with Leo, not black enough to be with Damson, not a nepo baby and not a Brit”) and also her difficult temperament, stuck in a “one-sided beef with Shonda” and choosing wild, drug-fuelled nights over bright-eyed morning auditions. Misty Green is...

Read the original report at The Guardian.