Beats

August, a high-school student on Chicago's South Side, cannot leave the house after his sister is shot in the street. He makes beats in his room. The school security guard, a man who once worked in the music business, hears what the boy is making and sees in it a way to get him outside. The film is not interested in a music career. It is interested in how trauma shuts a person indoors: the real tension is getting through the door. The man's motives are not entirely clean either, and the film does not hide it. The form is small: a few locations, long conversations and the music itself. The sound of the Chicago scene sets the texture. Chris Robinson directed. He spent years making music videos, and this is made with an ear from that world. It was released on Netflix. Khalil Everage plays August, Anthony Anderson the guard and Uzo Aduba the mother. Anderson's dramatic register here departs markedly from his comedy career. Who it is for: viewers who like music-centred youth drama. Who it is not for: anyone after an original structure. The story runs a familiar course and the ending is guessed early.