By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Geremy Jasper
Cast: Danielle Macdonald, Bridget Everett, Siddarth Dhananjay, Mamoudou Athie, McCaul Lombardi, Patrick Brana, Wass Stevens, Sahr Ngaujah, Nick Sandow and Cathy Moriarty.
Rating: Excellent.
Filmmaker Geremy Jasper makes his feature film debut with “Patti Cake$”, a drama with heart that after you see it you will leave the theater with a lot of motivation.
The movie centers in Patti “Dumbo” Dombrowski (Danielle Macdonald) an obese young girl from New Jersey that works as a bartender in a local bar and suffers from constant bullying.
In her free time she writes hip hop and lyrics with her best friend Jheri (Siddarth Dhananjay) who constantly encourages her on not being afraid of failure.
They will meet an interesting character named by his artistic named of Basterd (Mamoudou Athie), togethe will form a rap band and will try to get fame and fortune at any cost by working hard and believing in themselves.
One of the things that made “Patti Cake$” special was the story. Geremy Jasper not only directed a sweet and touching movie filled with most an unknown cast that gave very good and convincing performances, specially from Danielle Macdonald who was really good as Patti Cakes.
The way the story was crafted was very unique and I liked the visual looks of this film. I saw influences from movies like “8 Mile” and “Hustle & Flow” due to the theme of both films and this one.
This is an example of what I talked in this space before, which is when you write a story that is original and touching you can do great things, no matter the budget of your film.
Also this is a proof of what I have said for many years: Independent Film has been way to much better than the studio system and this proofs my point.
The chemistry between the characters works in this film and Geremy Jasper created very good characters.
The internal conflict of the character of Patti is what really made this movie work. You can tell from the opening image of the film that this girl has a lot in her plate and practically she is the one who carries a dysfunctional family that consists in her jobless mother and ailing grandmother played by Cathy Moriarty, who is well known for portraying Vickie La Motta in Martin Scorsese´s “Raging Bull”.
The connection between Patti and her grandmother is the core of this movie and is one of the things that made in even special.
I´m not either a rap or hip hop lover but I did like the music of this picture that does deliver very good results.
Gerremy Jasper´s debut started with the right foot and hopefully we can see more movies from him in the future.
For Independent Film Lovers “Patti Cake$” is a movie that you cannot miss and you will enjoy it from beginning to end.
“Patti Cake$” is one of the surprises of this year and I highly recommend it for it´s screenplay, directing and performances from an unknown cast that hopefully will go to far and we can see more from them in the future.