August Lane

Black (The Art of Scandal) wows with this showstopping contemporary romance that doubles as both a love letter to and a critique of the country music scene. Small-town waitress August Lane’s semi-estranged mother, Jojo, is about to become the first Black woman inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and invites August’s high school sweetheart Luke Randall, the only other semi-famous musician from Arcadia, Ark., to open for her at a celebratory concert in their shared hometown. A washed-up and only recently dried out one-hit wonder at 31, Luke harbors a big secret: he didn’t write the love song that made him famous—August did. Their emotional and impressively nuanced second-chance romance plays out over dual timelines, chronicling their messy reunion in 2023 and flashing back to show how their shared love of music brought them together in 2009 before a series of painful events tore them apart. Both leads feel achingly real, with painful backstories involving familial abuse and adolescent bullying that are refreshingly unsensationalized, and it’s as satisfying to see them renegotiate their creative collaboration as reignite their romance. The incisive indictment of the country music industry’s treatment of Black artists is carried off just as skillfully. Full of heart and unafraid of wading into thorny territory, this is a tour de force. (Aug.)