Certificate: 15 (very strong language). Running Time: 82 mins. UK Distributor: Searchlight Pictures
WHO’S IN IT?
David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah, Alice Hewkin, Munya Chawawa, Simon Manyonda, Karene Peter, Benjamin Sarpong-Broni, Poppy Allen-Quarmby, Malcolm Atobrah
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Raine Allen-Miller (director), Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia (writers), Yvonne Isimeme Ibazebo and Damian Jones (producers), Kwes (composer), Olan Collardy (cinematographer), Victoria Boydell (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Two young adults (Jonsson and Oparah) connect during a day together across South London…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON RYE LANE?
As reliable and easily accessible as the romantic-comedy genre is, there is such an overwhelming conventionality to them that to even mention how conventional they are is a trope in and of itself. They can be executed just fine with charm to spare, but at the end of the day you will more often than not have a good inkling as to whether or not the two central lovers will get together by the end.
Rye Lane, from debut feature director Raine Allen-Miller, is at first glance not a whole lot different – boy meets girl, they get to know each other, and so on – but as it gently plods along, letting its tropes play out naturally and with an exceptional amount of style and charisma, something fascinating happens. Even though you more or less know where it’s going, you’re still clinging onto every story beat and every piece of telling dialogue, to where all of a sudden you don’t care about the fact that you’ve seen it all before. It adds, for the first time in a rom-com for a while, something fresh and lively to the well-worn path, and might just make you fall in love with the genre all over again.
The film opens in that most romantic of locations: a unisex toilet at an art exhibition in South London, where twenty-something accountant Dom (David Jonsson) is weeping in one of the stalls, having been dumped by his girlfriend Gia (Karene Peter) for his best mate Eric (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni). His path soon crosses with wannabe fashion designer Yas (Vivian Oparah) after she uses the stall next to his, and the pair end up walking and talking with each other across town over the rest of the day, where they confront their exes and attempt to get over their respective break-ups – while, naturally, sensing that undeniable romantic spark between them.
Plot comparisons to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise are inevitable, but they are fully earned as Rye Lane wears that particular influence on its sleeve, mixed with the feel-good nature of a typical Richard Curtis rom-com (including a surprise cameo by a Curtis regular that’s as unexpected as it is hilarious). However, Allen-Miller also takes the opportunity to establish a style and pace that is all their own, and effectively turn it into a third protagonist opposite Jonsson’s Dom and Oparah’s Yas. Scenes of the two of them wandering up and down the streets of London’s Brixton and Peckham areas glow with popping colours, accentuated by unique wide-angle lens cinematography (which almost make you feel like you need a VR headset to take in everything that’s within the immediate 360-degree vicinity), and inventive editing that playfully blends exaggerated fantasy with the characters’ deeper insecurities. The style is wondrous, and easily engages the viewer on a visual level that genuinely feels like nothing you’ve yet seen in a romantic-comedy of this nature.
The real beauty of Allen-Miller’s style, though, is that you’re also so invested in these characters and their meaningful, not to mention often hilarious, misadventures across this singular day, that after a while the style hardly feels distracting. Working from a tight script by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, Allen-Miller manages to extend their vibrant filmmaking energy into not only making these two will-they-or-won’t-they protagonists extremely likeable, more so than perhaps they already were on the page, but getting some fun, cheery, and endlessly charismatic performances out of actors David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah, who share fantastic chemistry with each other and easily win you over within seconds. As their characters converse with one another, whether it’s about their painful recent break-ups or just chatting about anything else that happens to cross their mind, you’re hooked onto every word, laughing along at each of their jokes or when they find themselves in awkward situations, and always interested in how their own journeys will eventually end (aside from, y’know, the obvious).
That’s another thing about Rye Lane, which is that when you break it down, it really is following the rom-com formula to a tee, complete with a third-act that goes all out with grand gestures, momentary conflict, and the big, all-important declaration just before the credits begin rolling. Here, though, the fact that it’s following a pattern you’ve seen many times over hardly matters, because once again there is so much that is effortlessly sucking you in – whether it’s Allen-Miller’s unique style, or how much you’re invested in these characters – that it feels like you’re experiencing all the familiar conventions for the first time again. That is rare to find in a romantic-comedy nowadays, especially one that’s being given a mainstream release such as this, and it makes you look back on some of the more recent genre examples – specifically underwhelming-or-worse ones like What’s Love Got to Do with It? and Your Place Or Mine – with the realisation that they, too, were following specific guidelines but without hardly as much passion or energy that Rye Lane puts into its perfectly contained 82-minute runtime.
This film is everything that you’d want a rom-com to be in this day and age: sticking to a clear formula, but never feeling as though it’s bound solidly to it, and can branch out with its own personality and vibe if it so chooses, not to mention with romantic leads that you really do want to see end up together by the end. It’s fast, funny, charming, emotional, and filled with an infectious positivity that may just achieve the impossible and make even the most hardcore cynic fall in love with the romantic-comedy once more. After all, how can anyone resist a film where the MacGuffin of a major plot thread is a vinyl record by the legendary hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest? How many other rom-coms can you honestly say has that distinction?
SO, TO SUM UP…
Rye Lane is an inventive, endearing, and endlessly charming romantic-comedy that features a vibrant and unique filmmaking style by debut director Raine Allen-Miller, two extremely likeable and charismatic turns by lead actors David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah, and enough good vibes to make you fall in love with the rom-com formula all over again.
Rye Lane is now showing in cinemas nationwide –click here to find a screening near you!
