A Brilliant Conflict

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Twenty-four hours in the tentative relationship of two young San Franciscans also dealing with the conundrum of being a minority in a rapidly gentrifying city.Barry Jenkins has described the film's two main characters as "playing out a debate back and forth about identity politics". Each of the two main characters embodies an ideology. Jenkins saw the character of Micah as a man who was always building barriers, whereas Jo thinks that race is a limiter. Accusing Jo of assimilation, Micah strives to reclaim his essential "blackness" as Jo contrastingly claims Micah has a "hang up" about his race and strives to overcome her own.Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling the actors "effortlessly engaging" and the direction "assured"; he also noted the film was "beautifully photographed". Ebert is right on all counts. The acting is superb, very natural, and really shows off Wyatt Cenac as more than a comedian. The direction is strong, and the cinematography is gorgeous, some of the best you will find anywhere, whether in a big budget film or indie.The discussion of race is great. As a white man, maybe I can't see the issue from the point of view of Micah, Jo or Barry Jenkins. But I love that there's this divide of ideas. Micah is indignant, as he should be, about being a minority. But Jo prefers to look forward. Indeed, how does one define themselves? I don't think of myself as "white", and sometimes not even as a "man", but do these things define me whether or not I choose to accept them?

Unless he's willing to pursue a white woman (and he's totally not), he only has 5 out of every 100 women to choose from in the city. Then he finds a black woman he really desires, and he's torn up she's partnered with a white guy. As for her, although she really likes this bicycle man, and their hot & steamy sex they've had over a couple days, and she seems somewhat unhappy in her present relationship.. she ain't going to be switching lifestyles (remember too, she's unemployed), and moving from a nice, spacious, comfortable condo, into a tiny cramped box of an apartment, along with three bicycles and a fish-tank. So it does not appear she is going to be making any changes, and thus she rises early, and without goodbyes, peddles away as fast as she can. When the chemistry works between actors, and the dialog well written, these kinds of films are a joy to watch... a solid yes for viewing. And as an added bonus, there are several story-lines intertwined throughout the film.. all well done. This is engaging, intelligent, entertaining cinema.

I have no idea what these other reviewers are talking about. Usually these types of glowing reviews are sneaked in by people associated with the film to "prop it up" on the web. This is a painfully slow, bleak looking amateurish "student film" grade bore, topped with an implausible feeling. Forced, pretentious performances especially on the part of the girl played by the amateurish Tracey Heggins. I couldn't keep watching it after the first 10 minutes. I've seen too many of these where you're hoping against all hope that the film will get better - it doesn't 99% of the time so give it up now. I really can't understand what the fuss was about regarding this film on the festival circuit.

You couldn't make a movie that looks more like my day to day life in San Francisco than this. Telling the story of two black twenty-somethings who meet and have a one night stand, they start off the morning after in Bernal Heights, walk over to Noe Valley for breakfast, hop a cab to the Marina to drop her off, then he heads back to his studio on Geary at Hyde, two blocks from where I once rented a nearly identical apartment, down to the rotating walk-in closet door that once sported a Murphy bed. The couple meet again and head to the Museum of the African Diaspora on Mission and then over to Yerba Buena Gardens to ride the merry-go-round, both a block away from where I work. Later that night they buy stuff for dinner at Rainbow Grocery then head down to the Knockout to dance while my pal DJ Paul Paul spins 45s although his oldies singles are overdubbed on the film's soundtrack with obscure but cool indie rock. But aside from the pleasure of seeing all my usual haunts captured on on film, or digital video rather, Medicine For Melancholy is a smart movie that captures not only the vibe of life in downtown San Francisco, but also the subtleties of the changing ethnic and economic demographics of the second most expensive city in the country. The guy—played by Wyatt Cenac, an occasional correspondent on John Stewart's Daily Show—has a deadpan quarrelsomeness that is occasionally hilarious, because not only is he concerned about the ongoing disenfranchisement of the black community in the city, he's also bugged about the pending disenfranchisement of himself from the girl's pants once her live-in boyfriend returns to town. Her boyfriend, by the way, is white, which Cenac's character tries to elevate to a political issue because of his looming romantic frustration, but she's not having it, which leads to one of the film's best exchanges as they argue about the role race plays in forming their sense of self-identity. Lots of clever relationship stuff, like surreptitiously scoping out each other's MySpace profiles and sharp naturalistic dialogue as they continually negotiate and renegotiate the emotional boundaries and ending point of their one day affair. And maybe the scene with the housing activists meeting was a digression, but you know what, if you live here that stuff is very important and on everybody's mind, and it fits nicely given the context of the film whether you like it or not. Highly recommended.