Rosalind Eleazar Gave a Star Turn in Misty Green. Why Isn't Anyone Seeing It?

Rosalind Eleazar walked out of TIFF in September with the festival's Tribute Performer Award and a role critics were calling the best of her career. A month later, almost nobody is seeing it.

Misty Green, written and directed by Chris Rock and released by A24, opened Oct. 9 in six theaters, where it grossed about $86,000. Last weekend it expanded to 125 theaters and brought in $40,132, down 48%. That works out to $321 per theater. After 10 days, its domestic total stands at $141,126.

For a film with this cast, that's a stumble. Eleazar leads, with Daniel Kaluuya as her brother, Anna Kendrick as her best friend, Adam Driver as a low-rent filmmaker, Topher Grace as her agent, and Rock himself as a director named Jordan. Anthony Anderson, Alexandra Shipp and Tracie Thoms round out the ensemble.

Who is Misty Green?

Misty is an actress who won a supporting Emmy years ago and has been sliding ever since. When the story opens, she has one week to get out of a luxury Los Angeles apartment that was never hers. It belongs to the wife of a married man she was involved with, who has since died, and Misty never got anything in writing. Her closest friend can't take her in. What follows is a week in Hollywood's lower rungs, where talent and desperation sit side by side.

The performance critics keep talking about

Reviews of the film itself have been mixed. AV Club gave it a C+, faulting Rock's direction and the time spent on his own character. But even critics cool on the movie keep returning to Eleazar. AV Club's review called her performance the film's best element and said her Misty is more alive than the movie around her.

British audiences know Eleazar as Louisa Guy on Apple TV+'s Slow Horses. Misty Green is her first major American lead, and it's the kind of role, a Black woman who is talented, flawed, funny and falling, that Hollywood rarely builds a whole film around.

Why the numbers matter

Prestige platform releases are designed to build. Studios open small, let reviews and word of mouth do the work, then expand. Misty Green's second weekend suggests that word hasn't spread yet. It also lands in a crowded October where Street Fighter took No. 1 with $31 million.

Eleazar's performance deserves to be part of the awards conversation. But awards campaigns are expensive, and a $321 per-theater average doesn't make that case to a studio. If A24 is going to push her, the next few weekends will tell us.

In the meantime, if Misty Green is playing near you, go see it. Performances like this are how careers change, and audiences are part of that equation.