Patti Cake$ Feels Fresh Until It Doesn’t

Patti Cake$ should not feel fresh. Though it stars talented up-and-comer Danielle MacDonald, is a first-time feature from writer-director Geremy Jasper, and focuses on a title character with a bigger build not typically seen in mainstream crowd-pleasers, it pretty much is just that—a mainstream crowd-pleaser, albeit with some gritty New Jersey mise-en-scene.
A lot of the movie’s story comes from the already-worn playbook of 8 Mile: Like that movie’s fictionalized version of Emi