Rye Lane - Review Thread

The title “Rye Lane” refers to a street that runs through the neighborhoods of Peckham and Brixton, areas that were formerly known to be kind of rough (E.G., the song “Guns of Brixton” by The Clash) but it would seem that they’ve been hit with gentrification since then and seem rather bohemian as depicted in this new movie, a romantic comedy of the Before Sunrise “young couple meet and have an extended conversation while walking around a city” variety. The principals are Dom and Yas, a pair of young black Britons vaguely connected with the arts scene that have just gone through painful breakups, and over the course of the film they bond in various ways. In some ways the film actually reminded me more of another Before Sunrise derivative than the original, the somewhat forgotten 2016 film Southside With You, about the fabled first date of Barack and Michelle Obama in that it’s as much about showing the nice side of a misunderstood urban neighborhood as it is about focusing at the relationship at the center. Director Raine Allen-Miller, making her feature film debut, does a lot to inject the film with energy and color, possibly even a little too much when she maybe could have trusted in the central relationship a little more. A device involving a fantasy theater only kind of works, and she may have been better off not using that curvy No Sudden Move camera lens during a lot of the outdoor scenes. But those are mostly minor complaints in what is otherwise a pretty nice little movie and I wouldn’t be surprised to see bigger and better things from all involved.