Rock's last film as director was the romantic comedy "Top Five." NPR critic-at-large John Powers, reviewing it on Fresh Air, calls the new one high-powered and problematic, bursting with energy but headed to bleaker places than viewers might expect.
Eleazar, who you'll know from "Slow Horses," plays Misty, a gifted actress who won an Emmy a few years back on a show called "The Red Eye." Now she faces eviction from her seaside apartment. She is so desperate for work that she is preparing to audition for the kind of demeaning role Percival Everett set up in "Erasure."
Misty's problems stack up. She is biracial and no longer young, which makes her a hard sell in a Hollywood that likes its actresses young and white. She has also blown several good chances by being spiky, troublesome and druggy, and her brother, played by Daniel Kaluuya, is bipolar and keeps fleeing his clinic.
Rock built his name on biting jokes, yet Powers says this film holds more pain and nastiness than laughter.