I’ll level with you, I struggled to write this review. Not because the film left me uninspired or without substantive thought. Rather, The Forty-Year-Old Version left me with so much to consider and share that it all tried to come out at once and got jammed in the doorway –– Three Stooges style. And that, I now realize, is exactly the great success of this stirring film.
The Forty-Year-Old Version refuses to categorize itself into one digestible story, message or genre. The autobiographical feature – written, directed and starred in by Radha Blank – follows Radha, a struggling playwright, as she grows frustrated with gatekeeping in the theater world that has silenced and corrupted her voice. Once considered a young up-and-coming playwright, Radha is now nearly 40-years-old, teaching high schoolers and forced to reduce her work to “poverty porn” to get it produced. In an act of artistic reclamation and inherent protest against the “sell-by-date” myth of female art, Radha returns to an old passion, hip-hop, and becomes an MC under the name “RadhaMUSprime.”
As a mature Black, female New York-based artist with a multitude of interwoven identities, Radha’s story cannot be reduced to a single narrative or moral, and in The Forty-Year-Old Version, it is not. The film embraces all of the intrinsic considerations and complexities of Radha as an artist and a person. The multifaceted nature of life is reflected in the film’s tone as well– seeped in the ironic humor of humanity but succumbing to somber moments of pain and anger.
The film even embraces the full lives and stories of the supporting characters, not flattening them for a plot device but allowing them their own autonomy. Characters including Radha’s close friend Archie, romantic interest D, her students and many others. A host of fleshed-out characters with competing motivations leads to entangled inner-relationships, again, indicative of life.
Although I must note that the treatment of one side-character relationship is the source of my only major reservation with The Forty-Year-Old Version. Near the end of the film, a side queer romantic interest is introduced. My issue comes not with the relationship itself, but with how it was treated. I felt that it was not given the full consideration and justification a meaningful relationship requires. Rather, it read as an off-the-cuff plot device to offer last-minute humanity and motivation to a ‘difficult’ side character. This half-hearted relationship stood out as inauthentic against an otherwise genuine film.
Despite my one trepidation, The Forty-Year-Old Version is a witty, thought-provoking, beautiful film and a true success. Since its premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, The Forty-Year-Old Version has garnered much acclaim, winning the Satellite Award for Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical, the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best First Film. For the film, Radha also won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) New Generation Award, The Black Film Critics Circle’s Rising Star Award, The Sundance Institute Directing Award and 2020 Vanguard Award and other honors.
The Forty-Year-Old Version is available on Netflix.