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"Dope"

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U.S. Dramatic

Rick Famuyiwa's "Dope" is a crazy combination of high-school comedy, urban drug-dealing drama, raucous teen romance and social commentary, and it all works together beautifully. Malcolm (Shameik Moore) is a student geek in Inglewood, Calif., who hangs with his other geeky pals, the indeterminately ethnic Jib (Tony Revolori, from "The Grand Budapest Hotel") and butch lesbian Diggy (Kiersey Clemons, from "Transparent"). Malcolm likes '90s hip-hop culture, gets good grades and aims to get into Harvard — all things not expected of a black kid in Inglewood, where gangs and drug deals are around every corner. Malcolm's outcast life gets a radical change when he gets invited to a club by the neighborhood drug dealer, Dom (played by the rapper A$AP Rocky), and his sometimes girlfriend Nikki (Zoe Kravitz), and Malcolm escapes a shootout with his backpack, which now contains several kilos of drugs he must unload. Famuyiwa ("The Wood," "Brown Sugar") deftly weaves through a dozen moods, as Malcolm tries to juggle friendship, school, romance, the prospect of becoming a high-tech drug lord, and the day-to-day dangers of growing up black in a poor town like Inglewood. The result is a vital film that's by turns funny, tragic, exciting and thought-provoking.

- Sean P. Means

"Dope" is screening in the U.S. Dramatic competition of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. It screens again: Sunday, 9:30 p.m., Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City; Monday, 11:30 a.m., Prospector Square Theatre, Park City; Wednesday, 12:15 p.m., Eccles Theatre, Park City; Saturday, 8:30 a.m., Library Center Theatre, Park City.