Joanne and Micah, two African American twenty-somethings living in San Francisco, wake up together one morning after a alcohol-infused one-night stand; a bi-product of a late-night party among a mutual friend. They've never met each other before, and after getting breakfast together, Joanne quickly goes along her way, accidentally leaving her wallet behind in the cab. Knowing very little about Joanne, Micah is able to track down where she lives in order to return her wallet, which inevitably leads to the two of them spending the day together. Barry Jenkins' Medicine For Melancholy is a pensive and observant character study and romance, focusing on two African American characters who couldn't be more different. While Micah lives in San Francisco's lower-income Tenderloin district, Joanne lives in the pricey, upscale Marina District, being two individuals who couldn't be from more different worlds. Their is a mutual attraction between the two of them, but as they spend more time together it becomes increasingly clear that Joanne and Micah don't share the same viewpoints on most issues. Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy is an intimate story of two characters that manages to say a lot about about a host of issues, including race, poverty, and love. Creating a vivid portrait of San Francisco, Medicine for Melancholy is an observant film about gentrification, exposing the swelling gap that exists between the rich and the poor, as rent control dwindles and affordable housing only exists for the wealthy, and in most cases white individuals. Compared to some films that let their anger cloud their intelligence, Medicine for Melancholy provides a pretty mature viewpoint on race, exploring and acknowledging the important difference between society and the individual's viewpoint of oneself, with Joanne arguing that just because society defines her as black, she doesn't have fall victim to the same level of vapid description. Simply put, perhaps Medicine for Melancholy's greatest attribute is the simple reminder that race means next-to-nothing as a defining characteristic, with both Joanne and Micah's being completely different individuals whose only similarity, outside of a mutual attraction, is the color of their skin. Well-crafted as well, I particularly liked the cinematography in Medicine for Melancholy, where the camera itself drifts and floats along with the characters, creating a melancholic nature around this one fateful day in the lives of these individuals.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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