Early next month, a film will be released that is the very definition of a labor of love. Written by, directed by, and starring a plucky newcomer, it’s been half a decade in the making. But now, after reportedly enduring a string of problems and being left out of the public eye for several years, it’s finally ready for all the world to see. The film is Lola. The rookie in charge is Nicola Peltz-Beckham.
If that name sounds familiar, it could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe you’re a bone-deep fan of the Transformers franchise and recognize her best as Tessa Yeager from the 2014 installment, Age of Extinction. Maybe you enjoyed her multi-season, 14-episode run as Bradley Martin in the superfluous Psycho spin-off Bates Motel. Or, you know, maybe it’s just because her dad’s a billionaire and she’s married to David Beckham’s eldest son.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter because, with Lola, Peltz-Beckham finally gets to arrive on the world stage on her own terms. The tragic tale of a pregnant, chain-smoking, coke-snorting stripper looking to escape her religious mother in Middle America, Lola looks set to be an unflinching and authentic account of life below the poverty line.
Or, at least, it would be had audiences not already reacted to Lola’s trailer with incredible scorn. “I wish rich people like yourself would stay away from trying to tell stories like this,” wrote one user on Instagram. “You have no idea what this character’s reality is like. I find it offensive to the working-class women who are truly living this reality that have to see a billionaire indulge themselves into a dream acting role.” Or, as another put it more succinctly, “Omg a billionaire cosplaying a poor girl.”
In fairness, they could have a point. True, Peltz-Beckham might have grown up in a 27-bedroom Westchester mansion as one of the many children of activist investor Nelson Peltz, the 1,905th-richest person in the world, according to Forbes 2023 ranking. But that isn’t to say she doesn’t understand struggle. For over a year she’s watched forlornly as her father’s asset management firm, Trian Fund Management, increased its stake in Disney to about 30 million shares, in a desperate proxy fight for a board seat, and, really, isn’t that basically the same thing as being a drug-addicted, pregnant young stripper?
“Omg a billionaire cosplaying a poor girl.”
And let’s be clear—behind the scenes Lola was seemingly not without its challenges. Filming wrapped in April 2021, only for the project to languish unreleased until it was finally acquired last month for a North American release on February 9.
We may never know the true cause of the holdup, but there has been a scattering of tantalizing hints. For instance, when Lola was first announced—under its original title, Lola James, which presumably was changed after a British toddler with the same name was tragically murdered in the U.K. last year—Peltz-Beckham was named as the co-director of the film, alongside Bria Vinaite, the lead actress from 2017’s Oscar-nominated The Florida Project. This made sense, since The Florida Project, about a six-year-old girl who lives with her unemployed single mother in a seedy motel, may have had an overt influence on Lola. However, when the first trailer was released, two weeks ago, Vinaite’s name was nowhere to be seen.
Additionally, Peltz-Beckham has revealed that her husband—Brooklyn Beckham, himself a multi-hyphenate, nepo-baby photographer turned chef, and son of David and Victoria—filmed a small part for Lola, but his line had to be cut, due to his unmistakeable British accent. “Brooklyn is still mad at me,” Peltz-Beckham told The Sunday Times of London in 2022. Meanwhile, Peltz-Beckham and her entire family have spent the last few years with their hands full, after letting go of Peltz-Beckham and Brooklyn’s wedding planners just weeks before the nuptials, and then failing to recoup their $159,000 deposit. The wedding was in such trouble that at one point Nelson Peltz allegedly called the whole thing “a shit show” and reportedly threatened to cancel it. But now the lawsuits have been settled (after the wedding planners counter-sued), which is perhaps what finally gave Peltz-Bekcham enough room to fully commit to releasing Lola.
And this is Peltz-Beckham’s chance to prove that she’s more than just a floundering, out-of-touch party girl. When audiences watch Lola, they’ll see what this young woman is capable of achieving completely on her own. After all, this is a film that managed to hire the legendary producer Quincy Jones to be its executive music producer. It must take a truly incredible project to make that happen. Yes, Peltz-Beckham’s brother happens to be going out with Jones’s daughter, but that’s bound to be a complete coincidence.
Lola will be in select U.S. theaters and VOD beginning February 9
Stuart Heritage is a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL. He is the author of Bald: How I Slowly Learned to Not Hate Having No Hair (And You Can Too)