London Film Festival 2026 Review: Misty Green – “A remarkable performance.”

Life in LA is a frenetic mix of broken dreams, systemic racism and a growing mental health crisis in comedian Chris Rock’s uneven latest comedy drama, Misty Green. He has a lot to say about all of it, and these are points worth shouting about. But where he’s razor-sharp in his stand-up routines – there are too many subjects on display for any to really land. It’s part Hollywood satire with a focus on the obstacles faced by Black women, but it also throws in a noirish subplot and social commentary on homelessness and mental health.

The film works largely because of British lead Rosalind Eleazar, best known for TV shows like Slow Horses. It’s a remarkable performance in what should be a star-making film. But she shines above the muddled material and an occasionally reductive male gaze. Misty is an actor who hasn’t had a major role in a while. Despite Emmy’s from a TV series called Red Eye – jobs have dried up, her hedonistic and temperamental reputation precedes her, and she’s apparently in a “one-sided beef” with Shonda Rhimes. We first meet her being abruptly woken up by the angry widow of a man she once had an affair with and has a week to get out.

The seven-day countdown framing device gives it a kind of Safdie brother’s chaotic sense of urgency. Much like the characters in their films, titular Misty Green has a habit of making terrible decisions that can be hard to watch. She’s a complex and fascinating character, trying to make it in an industry that is still so hostile for Black women, but also burning down bridges all over town.

Screaming at her frazzled agent (Topher Grace), she finally gets in the room for a decent audition. But in a classic self-sabotaging move, she spends the night before with Zach (Adam Driver), a sleazeball acquaintance/lover, partying and taking multiple substances rather than learning her lines.

Her audition goes comedically badly, partly due to the fact she’s a hot mess, but also because her audition is rudely interrupted by a bigger name. Misty’s also a tough-talker, rarely taking accountability or showing vulnerability, preferring to communicate in barbs and keeping people at arm’s length. “I’m too Black to be with Leo, not Black enough to be with Damson, I’m not a nepo baby and I’m not a Brit,” she quips to her only real friend, Naomi (Anna Kendrick).

Like Misty, Naomi is at a career crossroads, but as Misty reminds her, they’re in very different situations. Naomi fetishises Black men, while in a dull relationship with a wealthy white man, and has no qualms about taking a trust fund from her family. It’s refreshing to see the well-worn trope of the best friend in an interracial friendship flipped, with Naomi as very much a side character.

One of the major issues with Misty Green is that, other than Misty, all of the characters feel 2D, and mostly live in her orbit as plot devices. Rock casts himself as Jordan Green, a jaded film director who hasn’t had a hit in a while and is largely a mouthpiece for Rock’s one-liners (although his bit about how civil rights films are awful because white people like them is one of the funnier moments).

Jordan and Misty meet again after he had fired her from a film years earlier for taking coke on set. He is rebooting Dream Girls, and Misty’s desperate for the role of Dina. Her one saving grace is she can sing as well as act, and the scene where Misty sings a soulful rendition of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ highlights her talents.

One of the most frustrating elements of the film is how underused Daniel Kalyuua is, as Misty’s brother, Jay. Recently released from a psychiatric facility, taking medication for bipolar disorder and in a deeply problematic relationship with a woman called Carol who worked at the facility – his return adds to Misty’s list of trouble. Kaluuya brings vulnerability and energy to the little screen time he has, and his scenes with Misty feels like the closest we see to the real version of her. Jay is the only person she could never perform in front of.

As well as a script that feels overwritten and leaden with exposition, there are also some odd stylistic choices. A traumatic flashback to Jay and Misty’s youth doesn’t really add anything other than a soap-opera texture. Visually, it leans into the grit and grime of the city’s dark side. LA looks downtrodden and washed out, Black men are routinely pulled over by the police as they look for a murder suspect, tents of unhoused people line the Walk of Fame. Rock does attempt to bring all of the subplots together in the third act, but it comes at the expense of any real character development for Misty Green, when it should be her story.

Misty Green had its UK premiere at LFF2026 and goes on general UK release on 6 November.