Hi, all!
Lets just get right into it.
Last week Lifetime sent me the screener for the upcoming Lifetime biopic Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge and Michel’le and I immediately found some time to watch this film and I was blown away.
I would like to begin by praising the leading lady, Rhyon Nicole Brown who played Michel’le. I have always been an admirer of her work and I follow her on social media so I was excited when she was chosen to portray Michel’le. She exceeded my expectations and then some.
When I initially wrote my review a few days ago, I noted that Rhyon mouthed the words over Michel’le’s voice, and when speaking with Rhyon’s manager she told me that Rhyon is actually speaking and boy does she sound JUST like Michel’le!!!!! I clap even harder for Rhyon’s performance because she nailed it, voice included. I am still amazed and I know that she probably even surprised herself, lol. This part was made for her, and I wish her nothing but continued success!
The story. We were lead to believe that Straight Out of Compton totally told the entire story of the men in the group, and the history they made and that was all, and that was it. However, that wasn’t it and there was so much more to the story, and there was so much that was left unsaid.
You may of heard about this biopic and thought “Oh, she is bitter and just wants to tarnish the image of NWA and Dr. Dre”, “She is lying..”, etc. Those thoughts all will go out of the window when you see this movie. You truly get a sense of what was going on behind the scenes of NWA and it will show you a totally different side of both Dr. Dre as well as Suge Knight — yes, I did say that you will see a different side of Suge Knight, lol.
I feel as though Michel’le truly told her story the way that she wanted to and she answered many of the questions that we all may have had about the story of NWA. The manager Jerry Heller seemed to not have been the man that was portrayed in the movie Straight Outta Compton (rest his soul, he cannot agree or deny any claims) but Michel’le dedicated the movie to his memory.
There was abuse, and those scenes were quite hard to watch. As incident after incident occurred I wondered why Michel’le stayed. I wondered where her own personal money was after she did touring and made hit singles — where was her money??
I only ask this because there is a scene that the lights get turned off in the home she shared with Dr. Dre and their son and she is seen crying for Dr. Dre to give her some money for food. However, it left me wondering why she didn’t seem to have control of her own money. I would’ve loved for this to have been brought up as it would leave you to understand why she would put up with that type of treatment.
The actor that portrayed Dr. Dre, Curtis Hamilton did a wonderful job as well. During the hard to watch scenes that will either enrage you or frighten you — or both, were acted out perfectly by Curtis and Rhyon. You could feel the emotion. It was so hard to watch and I have to say that I am saddened that Michel’le had to go through that for so long.
Actor R Marcos Taylor reprises his role as Suge Knight. He played Suge Knight in the Straight Outta Compton movie. As I stated above, this movie definitely showed a softer side of Suge Knight [lol], you will be surprised. However, it was only temporary. There is plenty of drama, plenty of eye opening scenes, plenty of gut wrenching scenes, and though quite a few questions are answered in the movie, there are a few that were left unanswered.
I cannot give out too much information due to the screener only being shared by Lifetime to us, the press, but you definitely want to tune into this movie, your eyes will definitely be glued to the screen as you’re trying to connect the dots as well as compare Michel’le’s story to Dre’s story.
Great movie, wonderfully talented actors, and a interesting life story.
Tune in on Lifetime at 8PM, Saturday, October 15th.
Xoxo
