Sometimes, a great performance can shine through and light up a not-great movie. Such is the case with “Misty Green,” Chris Rock’s uneven drama about a once-successful Hollywood actor struggling to navigate her second act in an unwelcoming Los Angeles. Misty (Rosalind Eleazar) is unquestionably very talented, and won an Emmy years ago for a show called “The Red Eye,” but she has multiple strikes against her: She’s Black, female and growing older, none of which helps her in an industry that’s set up to award the opposite. And she is her own worst enemy; haunted by a past vaguely hinted at, she’s self-destructive to a fault, choosing drug-fueled nights out over studying her lines for auditions.

Rock’s direction is tonally all over the place (an opening scene had me wondering whether we were actually watching a bad TV episode starring Misty), and his characters are an odd assortment of one-note stereotypes (Adam Driver as a bad influence; Anna Kendrick as a chatty best pal) and complicated people deserving more than the few lines they get (Daniel Kaluuya as Misty’s troubled brother). And he, despite playing a filmmaker character fond of making pronouncements, doesn’t have much to say that’s fresh about the racism and sexism of Hollywood. But there’s a sense of hard-won authenticity here: the drab audition rooms, the random extras in period costume on the studio lot, the way a long-ago role follows you around for life (people are always telling Misty that they loved her in “The Red Eye” — or, rather, that their parents did), the hope that the right role — for Misty, it’s Deena in a screen revival of “Dreamgirls” — might somehow make your life right again.

And Eleazar, a Brit who’s best known stateside for the Apple TV series “Slow Horses,” is a revelation. Her Misty has a determined, confident walk, like she’s perpetually ready to march into better lighting, and a gaze that could freeze the L.A. sun. She is messy and tempestuous and emotional, and Eleazar resists making her lovable, except in a few tiny moments: There’s one little happy dance, when Misty finally thinks she’s gotten her break, that’s irresistible. And watch her closely, in the audition for “Dreamgirls,” as Eleazar gives a master class in revealing character through a song. She sings “One Night Only,” showing us Misty becoming bigger, warmer, magnetic, dazzling — in short, before our eyes, she becomes a star.

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'MISTY GREEN'

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for sexual content, drug use, language throughout and some nudity)

Running time: 1:43

How to watch: Now in theaters

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