RYE LANE - Mark Reviews Movies

Rye Lane, Searchlight Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 30, 2023

The two meet basically by chance. They're very different kinds of people, these two, but they talk and spend time together and eventually figure out what everyone, including us in the audience, can see: These two are essentially a perfect match for each other, despite or because of those differences.

In other words, there's nothing especially new or revolutionary about Rye Lane, the debut feature of director Raine Allen-Miller. In terms of its story, the movie is a romantic comedy through and through, and fully aware of the simplicity of its foundational narrative, screenwriters Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia more or less do away with whatever expectations we might have about such a tale.

It's not about the complications and convolutions of the plot that force these characters together or apart. It's not about wondering if and how the couple at the core of the story will arrive at a happy ending. It's not really about a plot or a resolution at all. The film just follows these two on a day-long adventure along a certain street and through a couple of neighborhoods in South London, and on that fairly ordinary journey (with a couple of specific goals to accomplish on the way, of course), they just get to be themselves for a bit, learn about each other, and have a really nice time amidst the mess that their lives have become.

It's just refreshing to watch a film such as this one, which cares about its characters enough to allow them to talk, show who they are through words and actions, and just exist in something like an ordinary scenario (apart from a few complicated moments, naturally). There's no particular goal either one wants to achieve, except what they had planned for that day or decide upon on a whim, so there's no pressure for them to be or do anything they wouldn't be or do already. On the other side of that, there's no pressure for us to think about anything other than what's happening in the moment for these two characters, who are instantly likeable and only grow in that quality over the course of spending about 80 minutes with them.

They are Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah), who sort of meet in neighboring bathroom stalls at an art gallery. He's crying, looking at photos of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend as they paint the house that Dom and she used to share. Yas sits in the stall next to him, hears those quiet sobs, and asks if her neighbor is doing all right. She notes his bright pink sneakers before leaving the bathroom, and when she sees those shoes again in the gallery where a mutual friend is showing and selling his new work, Yas decides to talk to Dom—again for her but as a first meeting for him.

In terms of setup, it's really that simple. The rest of the film has the two be more or less inseparable, because neither wants to leave the other's company. Dom is still heartbroken, and Yas keeps making him laugh with some mildly chiding jokes, giving him little pep talks and confirmation about how terrible his cheating ex was, and looking at him in a way that doesn't make him feel like the loser he's certain he is. He's currently back—making a point to distinguish that he did leave his childhood home—living with his parents and works a satisfying, if admittedly boring, job as an accountant.

The duo's first little adventure of note has Dom meeting with his ex-girlfriend Gia (Karene Peter) and her new beau Eric (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni), who also happens to have been Dom's best friend until all of this happened (There's a string of funny jokes during a flashback of Dom explaining how he discovered the two were having an affair, especially a flashback within that flashback when he explain how he recognized a certain blurry part of Eric's body in a photo). He wants some kind of closure after being dumped unceremoniously in a six-year relationship, and they want to clear the air, because it's difficult feeling guilty about stabbing poor Dom in the back when the new couple is trying to have fun at home and abroad. Obviously, Yas jumps into the conversation, pretending to be Dom's new flame, but because the filmmakers have spent so much time letting the two chat and be natural, the scene is less about the joke and more about how much Dom—and we, for that matter—comes to admire Yas' cutting wit and willingness to stick up for someone who's basically little more than a complete stranger.

Yas knows a thing or two about the ending of a long-term relationship, although she says she was on the ending side of the break-up. That brings us to another, more elaborate adventure, which has Yas trying to determine how to break into her own ex's apartment to retrieve an album she accidentally left there.

As funny as all of that may be, forget it for a moment, because the real point of this, yet again, is to give them more time to talk—about their dreams (She wants to become a costume designer but now has a constant fear of rejection) and their pasts and their hobbies and their passions. Allen-Miller plays with a few narrative and stylistic tricks, such as an imaginative sequence in which Yas' breakup is portrayed as a stage play to an audience of Doms and the use of wide-angle lenses to capture as much of the backdrop as possible in a single shot (The film's adoration for its setting and the people who live there is apparent throughout), but the focus never leaves these two, what they have to say, and why all of that is important to what their relationship becomes.

Even that ending isn't entirely predictable, because the film's certainty that these characters deserve more and better doesn't start and stop with whether or not they'll wind up as a romantic couple. To be clear, Rye Lane is still a romantic comedy, but it earns the predictable part of its finale by giving us characters we truly and deeply come to like.

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