You Still Haven't Seen 'Beyond the Lights' Yet, Have You? Watch It Tuesday With the Director

Many of the 2014 films celebrated at Sunday night’s Oscars — Whiplash, American Sniper, Selma — are difficult ones to watch. Not so Beyond the Lights, nominated for Best Original Song for “Grateful.” A romantic drama about a pop star’s relationship with a police officer, Beyond the Lights is, at its heart, an old-fashioned crowd pleaser. You would like this movie. Your mom would like this movie. And now is the perfect time to see it! To celebrate the Blu-Ray/DVD release, director Gina Prince-Bythewood will be live-tweeting the film tonight and chatting with the fans at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

“My first twitter watch party!” Prince-Bythewood announced yesterday. “Cop the Beyond the Lights DVD or Blu-Ray tomorrow, pop in the director’s cut at 5PST/8EST and let’s watch together! Question about a scene? A line? An actor? Ask me anything with the hashtag #beyondthelights look forward to partying with you!” (If you can’t get the DVD by tonight, the film is available to rent on VOD and digital on-demand, including iTunes and Amazon.)

Watch the trailer for Beyond the Lights.

Beyond the Lights generated some serious buzz after its Toronto Film Festival premiere last fall, particularly for director Prince-Bythewood (whose 2000 drama Love & Basketball is a cult classic) and breakout star Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Unfortunately, very few people saw the film when it hit theaters. A limited theatrical release and a poor promotional campaign are likely to blame, though the media’s constant comparisons to the Whitney Houston-Kevin Costner movie The Bodyguard probably didn’t help matters much. So let’s clear that up: Despite some plot similarities, Beyond the Lights is nothing like The Bodyguard (which has not really stood the test of time, though its soundtrack is immortal.)

Prince-Bythewood’s film stars Mbatha-Raw as Noni, a rising R&B star from England. Noni’s life and career are closely managed by her single mother (Minnie Driver), who pulled the two of them out of poverty and will stop at nothing to make her daughter a star. But just as she’s about to drop her first full album, Noni has a life-changing encounter with an L.A. police officer, Kaz (Nate Parker).

Watch a clip from Beyond the Lights.

It is a credit to the director and her stars that Beyond the Lights feels like a true story. Most fictional pop stars reek of artificiality, but watching Mbatha-Raw gyrate in a music video, you don’t doubt for a second that this woman could be the next Rihanna. The pop music, much of it by The Dream, sounds authentic. So does the film’s portrayal of the paparazzi and social media, with their power to change a celebrity’s narrative in a heartbeat. Even Driver’s character, who could easily fall into stage-mother stereotypes, generates sympathy with her desperate ambition.

In another universe, Beyond the Lights might have been celebrated on Sunday night for more than its closing-credits song. Both Mbatha-Raw and Driver deliver Oscar-worthy performances, and Prince-Bythewood’s handling of this material is flawless. On the plus side, it’s not too late for audiences to discover it. Here’s hoping that the home video release gets Beyond the Lights the attention it deserves.

Image credit: Relativity Media