Kid Cudi’s Stylish Entergalactic on Netflix Is a Win for Black Rom-Com Representation
Photo Courtesy of Netflix
Scott Mescudi, aka Kid Cudi, is a musical visionary to say the least. Outside of music, the hip-hop/rap/R&B artist has gracefully leaped to other mediums like film and television. This year alone he executive produced horror filmmaker Ti West’s X and Pearl, in which he also starred. Now Mescudi has entered a new genre: animation. At first glance, amid the glitz and glam, one could assume Entergalactic to be promotional material for Cudi’s studio album of the same name. Initially slated as a television series, Entergalactic is a long-form animated special that blends the 2D/3D style of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse along with the grounded slice-of-life atmosphere of a Nora Ephron film, from an authentic Black, inner-city millennial perspective.
Set in the heart of NYC, Jabari (Kid Cudi) is a young street artist who moves into a studio apartment in a lavish complex. He spends his time graffiti tagging across the city, hanging with his best friends Jimmy (Timothée Chalamet) and Ky (Ty Dolla Sign), and figuring out plans to advance his career. After a run-in with his estranged ex-girlfriend Carmen (Laura Harrier), Jabari decides to live a content single 20-something lifestyle and focus on his career and friends. His world turns upside down though when he has a meet-cute with his next-door neighbor Meadow (Jessica Williams), a successful photographer on the verge of opening a gallery.
After Sony Animation made a cultural footprint on the medium of animation with Spider-Verse, studios made a 180-degree turn to prioritize making unique stylistic presentations instead of pushing technology to evoke reality. Using that unique style to tell a mature, adult story, allows Entergalactic flourish. Director Fletcher Moules uses multiple Spider-Verse techniques, including a low frame rate in the movement to mimic stop-motion, and it all comes together to give Entergalactic a laid-back atmosphere that matches the grounded nature of its romantic story.
A narrative such as this could have easily been live-action, but Moules makes a case for the animation with a cosmic spin, creating a vibrant, colorful portrait of human connections. The character designs don’t stray far from their respective voice actors’ looks—except for Chalamet’s Jimmy, which doubles down on the fuckboi version. That said, most of the story’s strength lies within its voice cast, who bring earnest performances to their characters.
Jabari and Meadow’s refreshingly calm demeanors and charming personalities match this immersive atmosphere, as Mescudi and Williams bring an irresistible warmth to their voice performances that illuminate their character’s natural chemistry. The story allows a proper slow build to Jabari and Meadow’s romance, and develops their attraction with fun visual humor and sincerity. Their relationship might hit the typical rom-com formula, but it delivers a refreshing take on the girl-next-door blueprint where the two are vocal about their feelings and emotions. Instead of going over the top when conflict ensues between the artist-lovers, the writers handle the story beats with consistent maturity. It clearly takes a lot of inspiration from many classic Nora Ephron rom-coms, but with a fleshed-out Black romance for people who grew up watching Nora Ephron shit without ever seeing one made for us.