Rye Lane – Film Review

Two twenty-somethings, both reeling from bad break-ups, connect over the course of an eventful day in South London – helping each other deal with their nightmare exes, and potentially restoring their faith in romance.

Most of the time, coming-of-age movies are centered around high schoolers but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t movies in the genre that follow people who are a bit older. Case in point – Raine Allen-Miller‘s Rye Lane, which focuses on two people in their twenties who live in South London.

They both live fairly normal lives but they recently went through tough breakups. In fact, in the absolutely hilarious opening scene, one of our lead protagonists – Dom – is in a public bathroom loudly crying over this and that’s when our other main protagonist – Yas – walks in and notices… and tries not to judge.

It’s clear from the moment the two meet again outside of this bathroom that there’s a bit of an awkward air and it’s at this moment in which I had a feeling that Rye Lane would be a breath of fresh air and thankfully, it was. Although it is way too short (it’s running time without credits is a mere seventy-six minutes) and predictable, I can’t deny just how much fun I had watching Dom and Yas’ journey.

These are two distinctly different people and yet they’re also quite similar in so many ways. They both compliment each other so nicely and it’s a relationship that’s beautiful to watch grow and evolve. When they first start conversing with one another early in the film, it’s clear that they’re both fairly shy and awkward people.

However, as the pair spend more time together and get to know one another better, this air of uncomfortableness slowly starts to dissipate which allows them to be more free and open with each other. They start to tell each other embarrassing stories and they tell secrets to each other while having some laughs at restaurants and bars.

In a lot of ways, this movie reminded me of Richard Linklater‘s Before trilogy. It’s not as good as those films were, but this movie certainly has a lot of the same vibes. Whether or not this was intentional or not is anybody’s guess, but I couldn’t help but make the comparison.

David Jonsson delivers an excellent performance as Dom, while Vivian Oparah‘s work as Yas is easily one of the year’s best so far. These two have electric chemistry together and I can only hope that they will work together again in the near future because they’re definitely quite the dynamic duo.

This is an outrageously wholesome romantic comedy-drama that’ll surely put you in a ridiculously good mood by the time the end credits roll. Sure, it may not be the most surprising and cliché-free movie out there, but it’s still one heck of a good time at the movies.

Even though the plot of Raine Allen-Miller’s Rye Lane isn’t particularly original or unexpected, it is a delightfully benign romantic comedy-drama propelled by two excellent lead performances and a pleasant tone.