California Schemin’ (dir. James McAvoy)

by Jack Martin | Apr 8, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 106 mins

UK Distributor: Studiocanal

UK Release Date: 10 April 2026

WHO’S IN CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN’?

Samuel Bottomley, Séamus McLean Ross, Lucy Halliday, Rebekah Murrell, James McAvoy, James Corden

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

James McAvoy (director), Elaine Gracie and Archie Thomson (writers), Paul Aniello, Simon Kay, Michael Mendelsohn and Danny Page (producers), Raffertie (composer), James Rhodes (cinematographer), Joe Sawyer (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A pair of Scottish rappers (Bottomley and Ross) pass themselves off as American to further their careers…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN’?

Music biopics are becoming increasingly harder to pull off, especially in a post-Walk Hard world. The criminally underrated spoof, which featured one of John C. Reilly’s most outstanding comedic lead roles, all too perfectly exposed the many tropes of your average cookie-cutter biopic, the majority of which are still being utilised to detrimental effect in films like Bohemian Rhapsody, I Wanna Dance with Somebody and (presumably) Michael, due out later this month. All of them, to some degree, do everything that Walk Hard once mocked, with nary a hint of self-awareness among them, and that is why a lot of them tend to fail nowadays.

Luckily, there are still some that gleefully break the pattern by taking a harder and less streamlined approach, most notably Rocketman, Kneecap and Better Man which, unlike those other examples, actually took some risks in telling a person’s meteoritic rise to fame, in ways that made their story not only more realistic but also more complex and interesting. Add California Schemin’ to that list, a music biopic which differs from all of them in the sense that the central figures, Californian rap duo Silibil N’ Brains, are not exactly established musicians themselves. In fact, as the plot to James McAvoy’s directorial debut shows, they weren’t even from the United States, let alone from California.

Rather, both Gavin Bain (Séamus McLean Ross) and Billy Boyd (Samuel Bottomley) hailed from early 2000s Dundee, Scotland, where in between shifts as call centre employees they were aspiring to become the next big thing in the hip-hop world. Unfortunately, while their lyrics and rhythmic wordplay are pretty solid, their thick Scottish accents make them an instant laughingstock among the snobbier music executives. Their solution is to apply fake American accents and remix their work in the Californian dialect, which instantly gets them far more attention and even a record deal with a London-based company run by the ruthless Anthony Reid (McAvoy, wisely taking a smaller supporting role in his own film). But their plan to publicly expose the double standards of the industry ends up derailing as their newfound fame causes the lie to spiral further and further out of control.

McAvoy’s film largely avoids the usual pitfalls of the music biopic that Walk Hard exposed, focusing primarily on the growing corruption among our two lead figures and how, through a mix of self-loathing and borderline unhinged dedication to their grift, they were ultimately responsible for their inevitable downfall. Working from a script by Elaine Gracie and Archie Thomson, the director shows a tight grasp on tone as he maintains a toughened atmosphere that, even in moments showcasing the duo’s success, feels gritty and often uncomfortable. That atmosphere tightens, via an intricate flow between scenes that McAvoy uses to make the story seem all too plausible, as it becomes increasingly clear that both members of Silibil N’ Brains, especially Bain (as fantastically portrayed by Ross, opposite an equally excellent Bottomley as Boyd), have become so consumed by their false pretences that their true selves are eroding at lightning speed. The fact that both of them initially have such an infectious chemistry, with Boyd’s girlfriend Mary (Lucy Halliday) also sharing in the camaraderie, makes later scenes of them becoming completely different people all the more heartbreaking.

It also raises some fascinating questions surrounding cultural identity, and how it can be exploited or dismissed entirely by people with far too much power in their grasp. While the whole incident stems from a rather mean instance of anti-Scottish sentiment, there is a burning insecurity within our two leads that causes them to hate their own heritage, to a point where they refuse to drop their faux-American nature, even when there’s nobody around them to fool. There is even a moment when their manager Tessa (Rebekah Murrell), a Black woman, points out how they are just another example of white artists taking something from her own culture and rebranding it as their own, an all-too-common practise in the music industry going as far back as when Elvis Presley popularised the style of various Black artists of the time. Such themes add real weight to California Schemin’ and how McAvoy, through an energised and playful directorial lens reminiscent of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (a movie that is directly referenced via a mural that is shown a few times throughout), is able to convey them in a gripping story that still remembers to be entertaining every once in a while.

Any grievances are minor and honestly not even worth bringing up, largely due to how they involve spoilers to a degree, though even if that wasn’t the case they still don’t subtract a whole lot from the viewing experience itself. That’s because California Schemin’ not only tells an interesting story with enthusiasm and clear respect for the real-life figures at its centre, even when at their least likeable, but is also smart with how it unpacks particular themes that extend far beyond this stranger-than-fiction tale and are worth bringing up within our wider culture. It all adds to a confident and assured directorial debut for McAvoy, who handles the transition beautifully and makes you very curious as to where he’ll take his filmmaking career next.

Until then, California Schemin’ is a music biopic that truly walks hard, and not just because it has clearly learned all the lessons about how not to do such a biopic from Walk Hard.

SO, TO SUM UP…

California Schemin’ is a smart, energetic and hugely engaging music biopic from debut director James McAvoy, who dives into the thematic and narrative complexities of his central story and his increasingly vulnerable figures while avoiding certain genre tropes and ensuring the viewer always has a good time.