SXSW Review: ‘Boxcutter’ is a Story of People, Hard Work, and the Challenges of Struggling to Succeed

Making it in the music business is no easy feat. The importance of forging a connection with someone who’s already established and might be able to talk to the right person can’t be understated, and such opportunities often come at the most inopportune moments. Such is the premise of Boxcutter, which follows a rapper determined to make it big who has the chance to meet a prominent producer but is critically lacking the sample of his work that he needs to show him.

Rome (Ashton James) is an up-and-coming rapper in Toronto ready to blow up, and the news that producer Richie Hill (Rich Kidd) is coming to town means that he might actually have a shot at stardom. But when he comes home to get his music only to find his apartment broken into and his laptop stolen, he’s forced to go to extreme lengths to find a way to get it back. Teaming up with his friend Jenaya (Zoe Lewis), Rome travels all across the city to find the producers he’s worked with to put together his tracks before it’s too late for this fateful and critical meeting that could change the course of his career.

Boxcutter marks the feature directorial debut of Reza Dahya, whose background is in radio. There’s a clear passion for music in this project, which is screening in SXSW’s 24 Beats Per Second section and which shows the piecemeal efforts undertaken by those without means or money who want to get as many people as possible to listen to their work. Rome is questioned multiple times about why he doesn’t have a backup for his music – it was on his laptop, he explains – but he’s starting out from the bottom and just trying to break into the business, a far cry from the success he hopes to one day achieve, at which point he would have a far stabler support system that doesn’t require putting together so many odds and ends.

This is a film that’s just as much about relationships as it is about music, as Jenaya travels with Rome to seemingly every corner of the city in search of each piece of the puzzle that’s frustratingly far from the one before it. This isn’t Jenaya’s fight yet she’s fully in it, though there are moments at which Rome’s desperation manifests itself as a lack of appreciation, prompting Jenaya to confront Rome about how he sometimes sounds entitled and, like everyone, has to work for what he wants rather than assuming it’s just going to come to him. Those conversations are very worthwhile and serve as a highlight of the film, underscoring how perspective comes into play when one person has everything at stake and another is selflessly trying to help them, even though the outcome really won’t affect them in the same way.

James, whose resume consists mainly of TV guest spots on series like The Boys, Five Days at Memorial, and Pretty Hard Cases, delivers a lived-in turn at Rome that reveals his immature frustration, something that stands in stark contrast to his talent and threatens to undo the progress he’s made when he lashes out at those who aren’t helping him enough in his moment of crisis. He’s very well-paired with Lewis in what marks only her second screen credit, making Jenaya feel just as much a central part of this story as Rome even though she’s really just a supporting player. Dahya shows great promise in his first feature-length try behind the camera, honing in not just on the power of music but the way in which it brings people together as they search for new ways to make it.

Movie Rating: 7/10