Outsider’s rise in rap world easy to cheer
“Patti Cake$” advances the increasingly endangered idea that in the cross-cultural ferment of America, you can be anything you want.
Even if you’re not American.
That’s implicit in the casting of the lead role: Australian Danielle Macdonald plays Patti, a zaftig, bluecollar 20-something from North Jersey who wants to be a rapper. Patricia Dombrowski calls herself White Trish, then Patti Cake$ (so named by her grandmother, played by Cathy Moriarity).
I like White Trish better, but the point is, she is played with impressive authenticity by Macdonald, whose Noit Joisey accent is usually spot-on. This is astonishing at a time when there is an epidemic of European and Australian actors butchering regional American accents (I’m looking at you, Daniel Craig, in “Logan Lucky”).
Surely, it helps that director Geremy Jasper (making the jump from music videos) is a native of
Central Ohio has a lot of small charities doing great things with a little money.
A new organization called 100 Men Who Give a Damn wants to find them and hand them checks for $10,000.
The group is one of a growing number across the country that operates on a simple premise: The 100 or so members meet four times a year for one hour, hear presentations from three small charities, and vote on one to support. Each member writes a check for $100 on the spot.
The simplicity of the concept appeals to people, said Jim Mitchell of Columbus, one of the organizers of the 100 Men group in central Ohio.
“It’s compelling,” said Mitchell, who has a business background and now teaches photography.
He began pitching the idea in central Ohio in early July and, in a few weeks, had exceeded 100 members. The group will hold its first meeting — and award its first check — on Oct. 2 at a place to be determined.
Member Ray Cunningham said he likes the idea that his $100 is leveraged into $10,000 at a single event.
I wrote two years ago about the central Ohio chapter of 100 Women Who Care (Columbus100wwc.weebly. com), which employs a similar format. In both cases, all of the money raised goes to the charity selected at each meeting.
The 100 Women group has given away thousands of dollars in several years. It’s currently searching for a bigger venue for its quarterly meetings because of a growing membership, leader Elaine Hairston said.
The mother of this movement was the late Karen Dunagin, former mayor of Jackson, Michigan. In 2006, Dunagin was asked to help fight infant mortality by organizing a fundraiser to
Hillsdale, the Bergen County town where he grew up writing rap lyrics — he penned all of the songs in the movie — for songs he was too embarrassed to perform publicly. In “Patti Cake$,” he off-loads the task on Macdonald, whose character has none of his shyness.
Patti’s nerve is her best feature but not her only attribute. She’s a resilient young lady who lives in a messy home with a single mother (Bridget Everett) whose own dreams of being a rock star died about the same time as big hair and who now spends her time belittling her daughter’s ambitions and her music.
Patti perseveres — she tends bar at a dive, works for a catering outfit, writes lyrics, battles other would- be hip- hop artists on the street corner, shows up at open- mic nights. At one of these, she spots a young African-American man (Mamoudou Athie) performing metal-ish punk to an unappreciative audience — Patti senses an independent-minded soulmate, one with a mixing board. ( Athie’s otherworldly presence made me think of Joe Morton in “Brother From Another Planet,” and “Cake$” has some of that North Jersey, John Sayles vibe.)
She and her “manager” (Siddharth Dhananjay) now have all the ingredients of their own hip- hip act, with input from Grandma and, perhaps, another secret ingredient.
For that, director Jasper makes us wait until the climactic scene — when Patti takes the stage in a rap contest, facing other performers and a hostile crowd.
Here, the movie’s themes of inclusiveness bump against the racial and gender norms of hip-hop in ways that both challenge and recognize the cultural reach of the music.
“Patti Cake$,” in the end, is a little pat, but it doesn’t take its underdog, band- of- misfits formula too far — and Macdonald’s infectious grit carries the day.