Nicola Peltz suffers an unexpected setback as her gritty directorial debut Lola is ripped apart by unimpressed critics – with scathing reviews dismissing it as ‘poverty porn’ and an exploitative ‘vanity project’
Nicola Peltz’s directorial debut Lola has been ripped apart by critics and viewers alike, who have called the film nothing more than a ‘vanity project’.
The heir, 29, wrote, directed and starred in the film, which premiered on February 9 with a limited theatrical and digital release.
She plays the main character, a teenage girl working to save enough money to get her and her younger brother out of the toxic home they share with their mother.
She soon faces a series of traumatic clichés, such as drug addiction, poverty, sex work and teenage pregnancy.
But critics have hailed the film as ‘a glorified commercial’ for Nicola and accused the film of being ‘poverty porn’, meaning the exploitation of poverty for entertainment and artistic recognition.
Nicola Peltz’s directorial debut Lola has been ripped apart by critics and viewers alike, who have labeled the film nothing more than a ‘vanity project’ (pictured in film)
The heir, 29, wrote, directed and starred in the film, which premiered on February 9 with a limited theatrical and digital release (pictured at the premiere)
She plays the title character, a teenage girl who works to save enough money to get her and her younger brother out of the toxic home they share with their mother (pictured in film)
Write for In review onlineAyeen Forootan said, ‘There is nothing really surprising or new to be found in Lola’s poorly scripted and stereotypical melodramatic story, which is mostly realized as typical arrangements of manufactured intensity and overt emotional struggle’.
While The Guardian’s Kady Ruth Ashcraft called the project a ‘laughably slanted film’ and wrote: ‘Lola, whose protagonist moves from one traumatic experience to the next, doesn’t explore difficulty – it exploits it’.
She added: ‘Filled to the brim with underbaked, often damaging tropes – the supportive black best friend, a queer kid who meets an unceremonious death, the virginal stripper saved by motherhood, a hypocritical Christian drunk – the film leaves one wondering what that could have been achieved if any of these characters or their stories were given as much attention as the gaffers paid for the light hitting Peltz Beckham’s cheekbones.’
While typing Spectrum cultureacknowledged Andrew Burton that Lola was ‘a film destined for derision’, with Nicola being the daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz and as far removed from poverty as it is possible to be.
But he continued: ‘It’s not a law that directors making slice-of-life films have to be personally familiar with the material they’re portraying, but before they even see Lola, the disconnect between the dead-end world, the film takes place in and Peltz Beckham’s background stands out as jarring.
‘One cannot avoid feeling that the project is doomed from the start because it is conceptually unsustainable.’
He added: ‘In general, Lola is overly dependent on showing flashy signs (cigarettes, crosses, make-up equipment) at the expense of plot around them.’
Write for Wherever I lookAustin Estrada said, ‘Lola’s script takes such melodramatic turns without painting a full picture of its characters that the entire film feels like an after-school special.’
But critics have hailed the film as ‘a glorified commercial’ for Nicola and accused the film of being ‘poverty porn’, meaning the exploitation of poverty for entertainment and artistic recognition (pictured in film)
Other viewers came to the same conclusion, with one reviewer concluding: “Overall, ‘Lola’ was a forgettable and lackluster cinematic experience. Save your time and money for a film that really lives up to its promises.”
While another took to social media to write: ‘I’m watching Lola, Nicola Peltz Beckham’s poverty porn vanity project and damn it’s horrible beyond my wildest expectations.’
Most viewers criticized how Nicola had failed to make any sense of the world she was trying to create.
While many others slammed her ‘dead-eyed’ acting and took issue with her consistently ‘staring off into space with perfect make-up’, another lamented: ‘I felt the whole film was based on her looking beautiful and giving her flattering close-ups ‘.
Talking to WWD in February, Nicola responded to the backlash she received for casting herself as a struggling, drug-addicted teenage stripper while living a life of almost unimaginable privilege.
She said: ‘The way I see it, I feel very connected to the characters I’ve created. And like I said, my best friend and my godson, they came from my life, and a lot of connections and relationships came from my life.
“But of course I didn’t grow up like Lola at all. And I wanted to write a story from a person’s perspective and a different point of view, which was not my personal view and not my upbringing.
‘I am an actress and my dream is to get to see the world from different perspectives.’
Most viewers criticized how Nicola had no understanding of the world she was trying to create in (pictured in film)
Speaking to WWD in February, Nicola responded to the backlash she received for casting herself as a struggling, drug-addicted teenage stripper while living a life of almost unimaginable privilege (pictured in December)
The actress has also been criticized for unfairly using her elite background to get her pet project made.
Nicola managed to secure the services of 28-time Grammy-winning producer Quincy Jones, the man behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, to help with the soundtrack for Lola.
Quincy’s daughter Kenya Kinski-Jones, 30, happens to be dating Nicola’s older brother Will, 37.
Nicola previously revealed the film had been six years in the making, saying: ‘I wrote it when I was 23 and it’s been such a labor of love. I put my heart and soul into it’.