Perceptive and provocative, HUSTLE & FLOW focuses on the limits and excesses of a DJay. Even as he's imagining a world beyond his own, however, DJay's vision is limited by immediate needs. Women, he admits to his new girl, Nola (Taryn Manning), are like men, not dogs, with aspirations and needs. Craig Brewer's first film doesn't hold back from showing DJay's gritty side: he's selfish, short-sighted, and angry, selling dirt-weed and living in a one-floor shack with his girls; in addition to Nola, the household includes lapdancer Lexus (Paula Jai Parker), her young son, and the very pregnant Shug (Taraji P. Henson).
The women are caught up in stereotypical roles, arguing with or supporting their man, who in turn sells their bodies to any creep with $20. But the actors bring depth, detail, and poetry to these character outlines. When Shug describes a recent nightmare (in which she gives birth to a dog, then finds herself "breastfeeding a big old catfish"), she thinks it through and concludes it's because of her fear of the unknown, a fear afflicting everyone in the house.