The Forty-Year-Old Version (Netflix)
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Director: Radha Blank
- Producer(s): Lena Waithe, Radha Blank, Inuka Bacote-Capiga, Jordan Fudge, Rishi Rajani, Jennifer Semler
- Writer(s): Radha Blank
- Studio: Netflix
- Length: 2h 09m
- Official Site: netflix.com/title/80231356
Synopsis
Radha (Radha Blank) is a 40-year-old New York playwright who teaches a playwriting class to ambivalent high school students. Once a successful playwright who won a 30 Under 30 Playwright's Award, she hasn't had a success in amost a decade.
Her agent/friend Archie (Peter Y. Kim) drags her to a posh event for theater producers and advises her to dust off her latest play, Harlem Ave., in order to present it to Broadway theater manager Josh Whitman (Reed Birney). However, Whitman insists her show about Harlem gentrification has to include a prominent white character and finally suggests she write for an upcoming Harriet Tubman musical instead.
Growing tired of the expectations put on her by rich white men, she decides to return to her roots as a rapper. She writes a new song called "Poverty Porn" and reaches out to a DJ named D (Oswin Benjamin), which finally gets her students to sit up and take up and take notice.