Left as a footnote in music and hip hop history, when the film is at its best, it's a mold breaking biopic for its subject. At its worst, it's as unfocused as the teenage mind it inhabits.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 27, 2018

Larnell gathers a wide cast of vital actors for a bustling series of incidents that veer quickly from the sentimental to the shattering.

| Mar 26, 2018

Adams is able to bring Shant to life, but "Roxanne Roxanne" is so focused on personal details that the bigger picture is rendered blurry.

| Original Score: C | Mar 23, 2018

A film that breaks the musical biopic mold in ways that are sometimes frustrating and frequently exhilarating.

| Mar 22, 2018

Don't worry: There will be rap battles and concert scenes and they do not disappoint. But they are the bass line beat. The drama of ordinary life is what makes this story stick in your head.

| Mar 22, 2018

One presumes that Michael Lerner's sense of emphasis is meant to humanize Shant, defining her apart from the fame she achieved, but this stratagem backfires as Roxanne Roxanne mires itself in scenes of speechifying domestic strife.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 21, 2018

By shaping Roxanne Roxanne as a character profile, Larnell accentuates his actors' performances and crafts a nuanced community portrait ...

| Original Score: B | Mar 20, 2018

In attempting a gritty portrayal of Shant's little-known private life, Roxanne Roxanne forgets her genius, as so many other people did back in the day.

| Mar 20, 2018

A musical biopic with plenty of swagger and style that will get hip hop fans of a certain age nostalgically swooning over vintage track suits and old-school dance moves.

| Mar 1, 2017

While there are some plot holes, the story we see on screen of a young girl's fierce determination is riveting, and the performances are deeply memorable.

| Mar 1, 2017

A skillful and ironically gripping coming-of-age movie: a hip-hop anti-biopic.

| Jan 27, 2017

Like [David O. Russell's] Joy, this story feels overwhelmingly like the writer/director's version of their subject's lives, rendering Roxanne Roxanne a portrait that's as expressive as it is incomplete.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 25, 2017