I wasn’t expecting to well up while watching a documentary about Kanye West. The embattled rapper has made some of the most thrilling, expansive albums in the genre and beyond, but around the time he aligned himself with Trump politically and the Kardashian set personally, the music took a turn for the turgid, while it seemed kinder to look away from the celebrity theatrics. Exhaustively scrutinising his tumultuous life and work over 20 years, the nearly five-hour Netflix project Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy is more moving than you might think.
Its directors, Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah, have history with West, having directed his breakout videos for the singles Through the Wire and Jesus Walks, and the film benefits from their thick-and-thin perspective. Filming for Jeen-yuhs effectively started in 1998, with a plan to chronicle the then 21-year-old unknown’s rise through the circuit, from securing a record deal through to the recording of his gamechanging 2004 debut The College Dropout – his blazing creative process at the outset captured like lightning in a bottle. After a period of estrangement, they catch up with the vastly changed West in the present day, beset with mental health problems, a ruinously inflated celebrity ego and lingering grief over the death of his mother, Donda. It’s upsetting viewing, and all the more poignant for the flashes of mercurial brilliance that still glimmer through his erratic behaviour. Try as the documentary might to end on a note of hopeful closure, we sense West’s story has a few more acts to go.
As it is, Jeen-yuhs is an essential addition to the ranks of hip-hop cinema: would that most titans of the genre had been so thoroughly documented at all stages of their career. For devoted thoroughness, it can be filed alongside Michael Rapaport’s Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (2011; Mubi/Amazon Prime), a lively, semi-scholarly portrait of the influential rap collective, though that’s a rather more plainly celebratory affair. Nas: Time is Illmatic (2014; Dogwoof on Demand) focuses particularly on the creation of a single classic album rather than a whole career, and is rich in the kind of musicological detail that larger portraits tend to leave out. Meanwhile, for a bigger picture of an entire scene’s origins, the 1983 classic Style Wars (Amazon) holds up well, immersing us in the graffiti-tagged New York City social unrest that shaped the form.
Hip-hop biopics are a patchier genre, often too sanitised and streamlined to serve their subjects well. Dynamically cast and performed, the NWA story Straight Outta Compton (2015; Netflix) is one of the best, though its conventional, Oscar-chasing rags-to-riches structure still feels ill-suited to such iconoclasts. Still, they fare better than the Notorious BIG in the Madame Tussauds-esque Notorious (2009; Disney+), which is bigger on bling than grit. More interesting is the subgenre of reflective star portraits for hip-hop icons playing versions of themselves. Eminem fared very well in his textured, propulsive Detroit origin story 8 Mile (2002; Netflix), a stiff 50 Cent less so in his vainglorious, Jim Sheridan-directed effort Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2005; also Netflix), though it’s fascinating as an exercise in 00s celebrity iconography.
Sometimes, however, there’s more authenticity in pure fiction. Terrence Howard scored an Oscar nomination for his scorching breakout turn as a Memphis pimp trying to break into rap in Hustle & Flow (2005; Apple TV), and the film, with its unflattering sweat and dirt and custom-written beats, hits harder than most. It’s also where women tend to get a fairer shake. A Sundance phenomenon a few years ago, Geremy Jasper’s Patti Cake$ (2017; Amazon Prime) – about a white working-class Jersey girl with big rap dreams – is too perfect an underdog story to be true, while writer-director-star Radha Blank’s delightful The 40-Year-Old Version (2020; Netflix) might be the most joyful hip-hop film ever made, with its story of a hard-up playwright fighting ageism, racism and sexism, and turning to hip-hop to find her voice. It’s a far cry from Jeen-yuhs’ sobering study of Kanye West struggling with his.
Also new on streaming and DVD
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With his talk of retiring from film-making now a distant memory, Steven Soderbergh continues to bounce fizzily from one genre to the next. This tight, trim thriller is one of his most purely enjoyable recent efforts. Starring a terrific, cobalt-haired Zoë Kravitz as an agoraphobic tech worker convinced she has overheard a violent crime, it nods to vintage Hitchcock and The Conversation in its prowling sense of paranoia, but also feels firmly rooted in the present.
House of Gucci
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As Lady Gaga fans dry their tears over the star’s omission from the best actress Oscar race, the arrival of Ridley Scott’s luridly entertaining true crime soap on small-screen media feels just right: it was always a glossy miniseries at heart. If Scott’s steely direction feels less than fully invested in the story of the Gucci family’s bloody downfall, you can’t say the same for Gaga, Al Pacino and Jared Leto’s grand, gale-force performances.
King Richard
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Will Smith’s all-in star turn as ultimate tennis dad Richard Williams – who pushed his daughters Venus and Serena to greatness – is so charismatic as to make you almost overlook how odd and uninquisitive it is to frame the Williams’s story as an inspirational Great Man biopic. When the sisters’ mother, Oracene (a superb Aunjanue Ellis), takes him to task for hogging all the credit, this otherwise very likable film doesn’t offer much of a corrective.
Old Henry
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So often a characterful presence at the edges of American independent films, Tim Blake Nelson gets the tailored starring vehicle he deserves in this pleasingly traditional, dirt-under-the-fingernails western. As a hard-bitten farmer defending his homestead against marauding outlaws – and revealing an unexpected backstory in the process – he’s a treat, showing newly heroic shades to his craggy physicality and dry, drawling delivery.
