The movie is about ambitious rapper Patricia Dombrowski, also known as Killa P. It's that singer also known as Patti Cake $, as she faces various challenges to succeed in New Jersey.
"[Macdonald's performance is] a star-making turn in a movie that's all about chasing star-making chances, and it comes with excellent support from Everett and Moriarty."
The performances are all first-rate - particularly Bridget Everett as Macdonald's haggard mother - but first time writer-director Geremy Jasper makes more bad choices than his misguided characters here.
Credit Danielle Macdonald for an emotionally authentic performance - one wrong turn, and she could be a caricature or, gulp, a Movie Character, fulfilling the screenplay's many familiar tropes.
Patti Cake$ has a story that feels authentic and touching, a hard-knocks tale played to a hip-hop beat, and with a star-making turn by Australian actress Danielle Macdonald
Take "8 Mile" and cross it with "Hustle & Flow" and add a little bit of "Precious" and you have "Patti Cake$," a hip-hop underdog story about finding the rhythm by following your own beat.
If you see it, there may be stretches where you'll want to give up and say, "Enough already." Yet something in Danielle Macdonald's performance keeps us in our seats ...
