Rye Lane
Rating: ***
Cast – David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah, Alice Hewkin, Poppy Allen-Quarmby, Benjamin Sarpong-Broni
There is something warm nurturing and endearing about Rye Lane. When you know that the two strangers who meet one fine day are destined to be a couple at the end of two hours,then the only way to keep the embers of interest alive is to make the relationship interesting.
Raine Allen-Miller makes her directorial debut with an itinerant rom-com featuring two endearing black young people ready and waiting to fall in love with each other.
I know that doesn’t sound like an exciting idea to build a love relationship. But here is the thing: David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah as Dom and Yas are so pitch- perfect in their parts it feels like the real thing , although Dom and Yas don’t know it. Not right away.
Dom is nerdy and whiny having just broken up with his girlfriend…or rather, she has broken up with him. Yas hears him sobbing in the next cubicle in a unisex restroom.Yes, they actually have one those in South London where the film is set.
Come to think of it , the eponymous location serves as the actual hero of the film. Raine Allen-Millar has an eye for locational lucidity .She lets her lead pair roam the bustling streets as though they were modernday black avatars of Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Their British accent helps.
The film has a freeflowing lightheaded benign –tempered feel to it. A lot of the lead pair’s interactive energy seems improvised. No filmmaker in the world can control what Yas and Dom say to one another or to the world.
But yes, I have to sadly admit that halfway through this when-Yam-met-Dom romcom, I felt the energy level flagging. For this, the writers Nathan Byron and Tom Melea are not to blame. It is not they. It is the characters.The sparring and the banter between Yas and Dom is razorsharp. After a point everything they say to one another seems like a jab. The narrative threatens to collapse under the weight of its lighthearted smartness.
But the fall in momentum doesn’t kill our interest in the burgeoning romance. We are just so happy to see these two drifters finding each other. I wouldn’t call their chemistry magical as much as practical. If two people with such well-aimed mutual repartees get together for a lifelong party, then…well…let the music play on!
