James McAvoy has always been an actor defined by transformation, by the slippery shift between wet-eyed tragedy in Atonement (2007), frothing instability in Irvine Welsh’s Filth (2013), stubborn idealism in the X-Men franchise, and machismo monstrousness in Split (2016) and Speak No Evil (2024). You get the sense, then, that his directorial debut California Schemin’ – based on the true story of Dundee rappers Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd, who bluffed their way into a record deal by posing as Americans and skirting the UK industry’s classism and Albaphobia – is his opportunity to slough a few of those layers away.
Here, it’s not the Hollywood star speaking so much as the once-dreamer from a Drumchapel council estate. It’s the pursuit of personal authenticity via, ironically, a story of cultural deception. And that’s lent this otherwise highly marketable, reliably palatable underdog story a welcome kind of restlessness, a barbed edge that’s bubbling right beneath the surface of Elaine Gracie and Archie Thomson’s script.
