‘Patti Cake$’ a dream for director, star.
Twenty- something New Jersey bartender and aspiring rap star Patricia Dombrowski (Danielle Macdonald) goes by many aliases. To her best friend, Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay), she’s mostly “Killa P” and sometimes “Patti Cake$” — the title of this exuberant musical comedy, a feel-good stew of hip-hop and tough love, served up by writer- director Geremy Jasper.
Not all of Patti’s nicknames are so flattering. Most people in her unidentified New Jersey neighborhood call her “Dumbo.” One customer (McCaul Lombardi) dismisses her as “White Precious.” And like the much-abused title character in the 2009 drama “Precious,” Patti is an immediately sympathetic heroine — a bright, talented young woman who is consigned by minutes her weight and poverty to society’s fringe.
A canny mixture of flash and grit, “Patti Cake$” is an unabashedly contrived Cinderella story, and thanks to Australia native Macdonald’s winning performance it gets the frizzy-blond princess-tobe it deserves.
Patti shows up for work with an eager-to-please smile and nary a hint of attitude. But when she’s off the clock
and rapping, all her bottledup grievances, insecurities and expletives come pouring out — brilliantly.
Whether she’s improvising lines with Jheri in a parking lot (“I’m in my own trap as I flip the world the birdie/ My verse is full of curses cuz I’m stuck in Dirty Jersey”) or matching wits with a local bully in an outdoor rap battle, she is a master at synthesizing tough-talking slang and personal insights into a virtuoso stream.
Patti’s alcoholic mother, Barb (wonderfully played by the New York cabaret legend Bridget Everett), treats her with a complex weave of tenderness and bitterness, the latter likely stemming from Barb’s own dashed musical dreams. Her signature tune, “Tuff Love (Barb Wire),” is one of 19 songs written by Jasper for the soundtrack.
But Patti’s talent finds a way. She and Jheri befriend a punk rocker known as Basterd the Anti- Christ ( Mamoudou Athie), whose rage-fueled performances conceal a gentler side that gets the full benefit of Athie’s soft- spoken charisma. Basterd agrees to lay down a few beats for their raps, and even Patti’s sardonic, wheelchair- bound Nana (Cathy Moriarty of “Raging Bull” fame) gets in on the action.
The band calls itself PBNJ, an acronym of everyone’s first names that also happens to sum up the appeal of “Patti Cake$”: It’s sweet, messy and a little square around the edges, but also awfully hard to resist.
In centering on a fictional white rapper, “Patti Cake$” is certain to generate accusations of cultural appropriation in an industry that often doesn’t give black artists their due. That Macdonald had never rapped before in her life before taking on the role may well be wielded as a criticism, rather than hailed as evidence of the actress’ versatility.
But the story is selfaware enough to confront the issue in one key scene where a black rap star (Sahr Ngaujah) calls Patti a “culture vulture.” She is hardly the first white person to identify with hiphop’s outsider ethos, but “Patti Cake$” never tries to pump her up into someone she isn’t. When she steps up to the mike and lets loose with her remarkable gift, the voice that we hear is hers and hers alone.