Medicine for Melancholy (2008)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Barry Jenkins

Writer:

Barry Jenkins (writer)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A night they barely remember becomes a day they'll never forget.

Plot:

A love story of bikes and one-night stands told through two African-American twenty-somethings dealing with the conundrum of being a minority in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco. |

Plot Keywords:

African American | One Night Stand | Aquarium | Gentrification | Black American

Awards:

1 win & 5 nominations

Cast

Wyatt Cenac	...	Micah
Tracey Heggins	...	'Jo
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Elizabeth Acker	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Melissa Bisagni	...	Cassandra Jay
DeMorge Brown	...	MOAD Voice
Powell DeGrange	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Chida Emeka	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
John Friedberg	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Dana Julius	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Ondine Kilker	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Erin Klenow	...	Museum Staffer
Phoebe Chi Ching Kwok	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Tommi Avicolli Mecca	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Adam Moskowitz	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Jennifer Sanchez	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Kenyatta Sheppard	...	Housing Rights Committee Member
Emily Taplin	...	Receptionist
Brent Weinbach	...	Waiter

Runtime:

Argentina:88 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival) | Canada:88 min (Toronto International Film Festival) | USA:88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Strike Anywhere

Excellent

You couldn't make a movie that looks more like my day to day life in San Francisco than this. Telling the story of two black twenty-somethings who meet and have a one night stand, they start off the morning after in Bernal Heights, walk over to Noe Valley for breakfast, hop a cab to the Marina to drop her off, then he heads back to his studio on Geary at Hyde, two blocks from where I once rented a nearly identical apartment, down to the rotating walk-in closet door that once sported a Murphy bed. The couple meet again and head to the Museum of the African Diaspora on Mission and then over to Yerba Buena Gardens to ride the merry-go-round, both a block away from where I work. Later that night they buy stuff for dinner at Rainbow Grocery then head down to the Knockout to dance while my pal DJ Paul Paul spins 45s although his oldies singles are overdubbed on the film's soundtrack with obscure but cool indie rock. But aside from the pleasure of seeing all my usual haunts captured on on film, or digital video rather, Medicine For Melancholy is a smart movie that captures not only the vibe of life in downtown San Francisco, but also the subtleties of the changing ethnic and economic demographics of the second most expensive city in the country. The guy—played by Wyatt Cenac, an occasional correspondent on John Stewart's Daily Show—has a deadpan quarrelsomeness that is occasionally hilarious, because not only is he concerned about the ongoing disenfranchisement of the black community in the city, he's also bugged about the pending disenfranchisement of himself from the girl's pants once her live-in boyfriend returns to town. Her boyfriend, by the way, is white, which Cenac's character tries to elevate to a political issue because of his looming romantic frustration, but she's not having it, which leads to one of the film's best exchanges as they argue about the role race plays in forming their sense of self-identity. Lots of clever relationship stuff, like surreptitiously scoping out each other's MySpace profiles and sharp naturalistic dialogue as they continually negotiate and renegotiate the emotional boundaries and ending point of their one day affair. And maybe the scene with the housing activists meeting was a digression, but you know what, if you live here that stuff is very important and on everybody's mind, and it fits nicely given the context of the film whether you like it or not. Highly recommended.