By Mark Kennedy
Yas and Dom meet-cute in the best possible way in the new rom-com "Rye Lane."
They're paired up at a karaoke bar by chance and simply slay, leaving the crowd demanding more and chanting their names. The new couple recognize "an immediate, deep animal attraction."
No, not really.
That's just the made-up story Yas tells Dom's cheating ex-girlfriend to make her jealous and signal he's moved on. It works: Even the ex's new lover calls it "hands-down the greatest hook-up story of all time."
How these two 20-somethings actually hook up is the subject of this sweet, down-to-earth, funny and thoughtful rom-com that shows two strangers moving though London and visibly falling in love over a matter of hours.
David Jonsson is Dom, the fresh agony of being dumped and cheated on after six years visible on his broken shoulders. Vivian Oparah is Yas, also newly single, but seemingly stronger. He's a little mousy, an accountant; she's vivacious, a fledgling fashion designer.
"Apparently there are two kinds of people in this world," she says. "The ones that wave at boats and the ones who hate joy." She waves at boats.
Director Raine Allen-Miller makes a stunning full-length debut, keeping the action deeply grounded in South London but also capturing pure flights of fancy, like when a stranger in a cowboy outfit suddenly screams out "Boring!" when Dom reveals he's an accountant or when Yas recreates a breaking point in her old relationship on a fictional theater stage with a hundred Doms in the audience.
Screenwriters Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia perfectly capture modern slang, like when Yas describes her ex: "He was trying to dilute my squash. And I was like, 'Not today, Satan'" or when she calls the boyfriend of Dom's ex a "jobless, useless bin fire."
The movie has a delicious mix of references that viewers can enjoy from both sides of the Atlantic, from "The Wire" and A Tribe Called Quest to sausage rolls and the Crufts dog show. A scene that uses a Terence Trent D'Arby song will have folks laughing, as one with Salt-N-Pepa's "Shoop."
"I don't know how this day is going to end, but as weird as it's been, it's also been one of the greatest days ever," says Dom.
And in a wonderful nod to another English rom-com — "Love Actually" — our would-be couple grab lunch at a Mexican food stall called Love Guac'tually and are served by one of that OG film's stars, Colin Firth.
The last third of the film sweeps along like an adrenaline high, with romantic moped rides, minor breaking-and-entering, some brutal words and laughter.
How did Dom and Yas really meet? The opening sequence shows an overhead shot of unisex bathroom stalls and finally rests on one man sobbing as he revisits Instagram photos of him and his ex. It's Dom, amid the peeing and tears.
"Everything all right in there?" Yas asks. "Yep, fine," he replies, lying.
Some 80 minutes later, he will be. So will you.
"Rye Lane," a Searchlight Pictures release, is rated R for "language, some sexual content and nudity." Running time: 79 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
Mark Kennedy is an AP entertainment writer
(Editor's note: Director Raine Allen-Miller is repped for commercials by MJZ in the U.S. and Somesuch in the U.K.)
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More