If you’re excited for A Star Is Born, you’ll love Beyond the Lights

Starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Beyond the Lights is sure to satisfy your craving for show business-based, music-infused romantic drama until A Star Is Born arrives.

So, A Star Is Born is going to be huge, right? It’s a well-reviewed remake of a classic story, it stars Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper and it’s a musical. (Or at least, music features heavily within the film.) This thing is too big to fail, and even if it somehow does, I’m still 100 percent here for it.

Anticipation is high for A Star Is Born, and I know I’m not the only one who is getting pumped for its premiere this week. It promises to scratch the itch we’ve had since La La Land first danced into our hearts. Plus, there’s bound to be some intense Twitter debates about who did it best — Gaga, Streisand, Garland, or Gaynor?

But, for as much as the new Star Is Born will draw comparisons to the 1976, 1954, and 1937 versions and/or La La Land, another movie pops into my head whenever I see Gaga or Cooper crooning in the teasers: Beyond the Lights, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s (Love & Basketball) 2014 movie about the toxicity of fame.

“San Junipero’s” Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as the mononymous pop singer Noni. She has an undeniably beautiful singing voice but, since getting famous, her music has been overshadowed by her image. Her record label wants to capitalize on her looks and her sex appeal, something Noni is not totally comfortable with. Some artists are fine wearing their sexuality on their sleeve, but that’s just not the case with Beyond the Lights‘ heroine. She has more to offer than her body, but nobody seems to be interested in her non-physical attributes.

So Noni lives a double life for much of the film. There’s her public persona, a cross between Beyoncé and Rihanna, and her “real” self, who is shy and more interested in songwriting than cultivating a brand. This split between who she is and who she’s pressured to be takes a toll, and even leads Noni to attempt suicide.

I can’t really spoil the Gaga-Cooper Star Is Born — since I haven’t seen it — but judging from the trailers and its predecessors, it too delves into the tragic consequences of living in the public eye. Like Noni, Cooper’s Jackson Maine is living within a disconnect. There’s the person he is on stage and the person he is in private. He bridges that divide with booze. That works for a while, and so does his relationship with Ally (Gaga), a talented, on-the-rise singer-songwriter, but neither is a panacea. If Jackson is ever going to get better (i.e. quit drinking and start being truly happy), he needs to find a way to reconcile the different facets of himself: music superstar, burnt out has-been and who he is underneath everything else.

That’s a journey Noni must take too, and much of Beyond the Lights‘ charms come from its protagonist taking stands, small and large, regarding her identity. She wrests control of her career from her domineering mother (Minnie Driver, who somehow makes her character incredibly loving and unapologetically exploitative). She refuses to re-sign with the label who turned her into a one-dimensional sex symbol and then dropped her when her mental health struggles became public. She begins to write and perform her own songs. And, one by one, Noni sheds the trappings of fame that made her miserable: the starvation, the rampant sexualization, the revealing, bondage-esque clothing, the fake nails, and the iconic purple weave.

You could argue that most of Noni’s growth is inspired by her romance with Kaz, the cop who talks her down during her suicide attempt (Nate Parker, more about him in a moment), but if anything, he’s the catalyst. Noni was already moving toward her breaking point, and likely would have had her epiphany without him. But I can’t deny their connection is touching and, similar to the central romance of the various Star Is Borns, restorative. Kaz makes Noni feel seen and understood, and she does the same for him.

For the record, I do acknowledge it is difficult to watch a film that explores the commodification and exploitation of women’s bodies and also stars a man accused of rape. For many viewers, Parker’s presence alone makes Beyond the Lights a no-go, which I understand completely. For others who are curious about the film, in spite of Parker, I will say his role is prominent but overall, it’s Noni’s story. She’s the one who drives the action, and the character the audience becomes invested in.

As we collectively gear up for the juggernaut that A Star Is Born is sure to be, many of us will be preparing by looking to the previous iterations and other musicals and stories about the destruction of fame. La La Land might seem to be the obvious non-Star Is Born choice, but Beyond the Lights is actually your best bet.

With her skyrocketing career and her struggles living in the limelight, Noni is reminiscent of both Ally and Jackson, but her story is even more compelling. She’s a victim of the fame machine’s treatment of women until she transforms herself into a survivor. Romance with Kaz aside, Noni is the one who recognizes she can no longer go on living as two people; she’s the person who ultimately rebuilds her life into something creatively and personally satisfying. By the end of Beyond the Lights, she makes her own decisions and figures out a way to be an artist and a person. Like the phoenix she sings about, she rises up from the ashes of a former life. A star is born.

Beyond the Lights is available to stream on Amazon Prime, and to rent on Amazon, iTunes, YouTube and other platforms. A Star Is Born hits theaters this Thursday, Oct. 4.