The Joyful RYE LANE and The Void of The Rom Com (Patreon)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love Rom Coms.

I know if I use that term your mind might drift to the more famous entries of 80’s and 90’s heyday. Films like When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, or Clueless. Films that  likely reinforce a kind of singular notion of what the genre is. But the thing that’s sometimes missing in the discussion is how fundamental romantic comedies have been to pretty much the entire history of storytelling. It goes back to the classic films of Hollywood like It Happened One Night and The Philadelphia Story. It goes back to the playful wit of Jane Austen novels. It goes back to Shakespeare’s comedies, which often involved marriages and counted for basically anything with a happy ending. Heck, it goes back to Euripides making satyr plays in 400 BC (that were pretty much just a string of dick jokes). It goes back so far because these fun, romantic stories speak to a fundamental human need from art. That is the human need to experience sweetness, joy, comfort, comic tension, and irreverence, often while celebrating foibles and innate sense of human yearning to connect. And as evidence, we’ve been making art that caters to that need for a long, long, long ass time.

But over the last couple of decades there’s been a weird, even reductive push back against the genre. Some of which is just your garden variety sexism, mostly born of the false belief that any kind of fun movie about relationships is a “chick flick” and not for, you know, everyone. But I acknowledge that other kinds of push back felt more organic and sensible. Because many of these movies often seemed to advocate a “love conquers all” mentality, fostered unhealthy concepts of relationships, often from conflict-based storytelling of “they hate each other / they love each other” tropes, etc. And many of them just cater to a lot of conventionality, whether it be heteronormativity or ugly societal standards. But all of that has to do with society and not the form itself. Because the Rom Com genre has also been a prime place to attack those exact same standards.

If you actually watch those classic films, the women of the Golden Age of Hollywood were brazen, outspoken, and vivacious, all fostering a topsy turvy world on screen (especially pre-code). Preston Sturges took dead aim at the same institutions we lament now, for the original title of Palm Beach Story was “Is Marriage Worth It?” And more importantly, it’s all about understanding that good storytelling is just about digging into the world around us and the depths of our own interior lives, of which love and relationships are often an integral part. And there are countless films throughout the last thirty years that vibe along with conventions of the genre to tell their own stories. From Chungking Express, to Happy Go Lucky, to Call Me By Your Name, to The Worst Person In The World. These films live in worlds where all of this complexity exists. And it’s not just something that CAN fit into the rom com…

It is THE best space for it.

Which makes it all the more distressing that studios have stopped putting them in the theaters (along with comedies in general). I don’t want to repeat the argument I made just a few columns ago, but their omission doesn’t just hurt the genre, it hurts the ecosystem of theaters on the whole. Granted, I know that Rom Coms haven’t disappeared completely, either. The streamers are making a bunch and a few of them get to pop, whether it’s the The All The Boys I’ve Loved Before films or a few bits from Always Be My Maybe. But many of these films are budget-slashed efforts that are released with little to no support and it just makes it all feel like it is halfway drowned down to Hallmark production standards. And hey, I like Hallmark movies as much as the next person, but when it comes to Rom Coms? We’re talking about movies that actually thrive off bringing in top-tier talent.

Because we’re talking about a genre that best feeds off mega movie star charisma. The kinds of actors that can charm, entrance, and rankle in equal measure. We’re talking about movies made by the kinds of great comic sensitive minds like the late Nora Ephron, who can tell these stories with great acumen, wit, and purpose. I know people think it’s easy to make movies that feel “nice” and “light on their feet,” but that’s actually ten times harder than so-called serious filmmaking. It is so, so, so hard to make these movies into something that’s not just relatable, but great. For it takes the complete understanding of the fundamentals of writing to make the audience care more than they ever thought possible, and ushering forth a complete catharsis. We used to get a few films like this a year. Now I feel like we get one or two… every five years? If we’re lucky? Simply put: there is an aching void in the great Rom Com universe. And I will rightfully adore anything that fills it.

Which is why I adored Rye Lane.

Released this year on Hulu as part of a BBC co-production, it is the goldilocks zone ideal of what we could want in both the classic and modern sense. It’s fresh and expansive. It features a predominantly Black cast, along with its director Raine Allen-Miller and co-writer Nathan Bryon. Even the title “Rye Lane” refers to the market that stands at the heart of one of the most diverse neighborhoods in London. But crucially, it has absolutely no interest in mining the concept of identity in the name of didacticism, nor demonstration. No, it’s just fodder for a setting that feels intimate and personal. All in part of them telling a tremendously funny, accessible story that makes good on everything that I like about writing, set-ups, and pay-offs. But like everything in a good Rom Com, it’s really about showcasing two great leads.

David Jonsson plays Dom, a broken-hearted young man who threads the needle beautifully, never quite tipping the character too far into sad sack, nor boring milquetoast territory, while absolutely grappling onto the way the character often feels like this internally. Similarly, there’s Vivian Oparah, who somehow splits the difference between vivacious and sardonic, while utterly capturing the push-pull of a person who has confidence in situations that don’t matter and overwhelming fear in situations that do. Both performances are the kind of magic tricks where the craft disappears and all you feel is the simple act of human beings being human (which is Rom Com Nirvana, really). And in that space, it carves out a naturalistic interaction between the two that’s actually ABOUT something. The kind of realistic romantic story where people aren’t just blank slates, but folks who carry around the open wounds of old relationships (without trying to be defined by them) and learning all the great things that can come out of communication.

There's so much I want to say about the film (and a little monster cameo within it), but it’s still so under-seen at the moment that I just have to stop there and consider this to be one of those carte blanche recommendation columns. Because if I really dug into the criticism side of it, all I’d really have is the smallest of nits for little things like “that wide-angle lens is just one step too wide” and things of that nature. Honestly, the only real criticism I have is that I wish it was in theaters with a full, laughing crowd.

Because we all need the thing that fills the void.

<3HULK