Medicine for Melancholy
Director: Barry Jenkins
Year Released: 2008
Rating: 1.5
Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Joanne (Tracey Heggins) hook up at a party and wake up together, they take off in a cab but she leaves her wallet behind, he tracks her down (via MySpace!) and the two of them spend time wandering around San Francisco, they pay a visit to the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), he complains about the city becoming too rich and entitled, she tells him to relax, etc. Jenkins was 29 when he directed this, his feature debut, but it still has all the elements of a student project (inspired in part by JLG's Breathless): the pacing is way off and the dialogue (especially the material involving racial issues) needed a lot of reworking - I also wanted to know more details regarding Joanne's relationship with the curator. It's the kind of movie where the male lead (who's surly from being dumped by his Caucasian ex-girlfriend) "serenades" the lady with "Won’t You Be My Neighbor" (from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) and she doesn't immediately run away....