Rye Lane – Review
82 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia
Directed by Raine Allen-Miller
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
Synopsis:
Two youngsters reeling from bad break-ups who connect over an eventful day in South London.
Rye Lane is another film that played at Sundance this year and is now – deservedly –hitting theaters already.
A day and a night can’t possibly change your life, can it?
It can if you’re Dom and Yas, who meet in the restroom at an art exhibit and whose relationship only gets weirder from there.
Yas crashes Dom’s meeting with his ex, Gia, and her new lover – and Dom’s friend – Nate, where they were expected to “clear the air,” which is simply code for “making ourselves feel better about screwing Dom over.”
Once Yas gives them the dressing down they both deserve, with some creative history thrown in, Dom is ecstatic and decides to help Yas deal with her own break-up.
Crafting a plot to liberate an album from her ex’s flat, Dom and Yas find themselves drawn into a “Mousetrap”-like game of side-quests, making everything far more difficult than it needs to be.
A film like Rye Lane only works if the characters are put together well enough to allow the audience to forgive any hijinks they might encounter along the way, and Rye Lane delivers on that account.
On both accounts: the characters and the hijinks.
Dom and Yas are both likable and pitiable in their own unique ways, so we never feel like anything is unusual in their lives, from a pre-ordained karaoke session to rifling through and Auntie’s drawer of unmentionables, the goal of the quest is clear, but its impacts and influences are not.
A solid set of performances carries Rye Lane over the finish line, with their manic energy balancing out any shortcoming in the script (although there are few that jump to mind).
Check out Rye Lane if it hits a theater in your area.
Rye Lane hits theaters releases on Hulu March 31 and stars David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah, Poppy Allen-Quarmby, Simon Manyonda, and Karene Peter.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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