Medicine For Melancholy (2008) | dir. Barry Jenkins | 88 min | USA

Act I: two strangers wake up in the same bed and silently prepare for the Walk of Shame. Over coffee, he initiates conversation but she rebuffs him (“you know this is just a one-night stand, right?”). They love, fight, and love again through sepia-toned, almost soft-focused lenses–a day in the life of a 24-hour romance that almost works out.

Some filmmakers are content with making statements, but others take it a step further and provoke reaction. Using two young lovers as a template for real talk about what it means to be black in San Francisco–the city, according to the film’s website (and actual statistics – 7%) with the smallest proportion of black people of any other major American city–first time writer/director Barry Jenkins brings what is usually left as subtext in other films to the forefront.

Micah is played by Wyatt Cenac (a writer and reporter for The Daily Show, who harnesses the full power of his blunt-swag to give his character a sleepy sincerity veiled over a quiet anger: at white boyfriends, gentrification, and the lack of Black people in the indie scene (“We got TV On the Radio, but that’s just one”). Jo, played to upper-middle class perfection by Tracey Heggins, is a throwback sister from a time when Neo-Soul and her hairdo was all the rage. They cruise San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon having candid exchanges that highlight their differences on race (her to him: “You think Black History Month is in February because it’s the shortest month” him to her: “It is.”). When she suggests they see the MOMA, he sneers and brings her to the Museum of the African Diaspora instead. She’s allergic to talking about race; it’s all he seems to want to talk about.

Stop there and you have a slightly above-average but cute and nicely-shot attempt at making She’s Gotta Have It Before Sunrise. Fortunately for us, director Barry Jenkins avoids neither playing the oppression olympics nor getting caught up in romance-movie fluff. Instead, he finds a route that anchors it all, expanding the scope to include class tensions. Micah is an aquarium installer, Jo lives off her rich boyfriend. He keeps red wine in the fridge and has a poster on his apartment wall that reminds him about the effects gentrification has had on his family and community. She is the only Black person in her neighborhood and doesn’t know why the hell he’d keep such a poster on his wall. 

With Micah sometimes treading “Conspiracy Brother” territory, his privilege as a man conveniently never enters the convo. Also, Jo’s profession and life isn’t as illuminated as Micah’s. But to judge Medicine for Melancholy for what it isn’t instead of what it is would be to make the same mistake Micah ends up making with Jo. What this film is, is a story about love in the time of so-called “post-racial” America, where some proclaim victory while we’re still doing battle in our own communities, and even our own relationships. 

Act III: In one seemingly out-of-place scene, Micah and Jo peer into a window where a meeting is taking place. The romance narrative is then interrupted with clips of community members of all backgrounds speaking on and strategizing in the battle for rent control and “development” in SF (Micah and Jo are still staring through the window). Though it’s randomness felt, initially, like contrived soapboxing, I suspect that my reaction is what Jenkins intended. A jarring interruption of a love story by some real life shit like rent control and class aspirations (and struggle). Frustrating, yet sobering.

This one could’ve just been called Micah and Jo and Bikes instead of something so depressingly art-house-sounding as Medicine For Melancholy. Bad movies are allowed to have bad titles, but not a film like this. First-time writer/director Barry Jenkins premiered his beautifully shot, low-budget digital love story at the 2008 SXSW film festival last year, got a big buzz that led to being picked up by IFC and landing the cover of Filmmaker magazine, and is keeping the flickering flame of Black cinema, and filmmakers of color in general, alive. 

Medicine For Melancholy is screening this week at the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle until Thursday, Feb. 26. It’s also available On Demand under IFC.

• The Obenson Report Podcast: Interview w/ Barry Jenkins (Jan 2009)
• Racialicious: Race, Class and One-Night Stands by G.D. (PostBourgie)
• Medicine For Melancholy website (Strike Anywhere films)