Rye Lane

The South Lon­don locales of Peck­ham and Brix­ton form the back­drop for this clas­si­cal, yet refresh­ing­ly vibrant tale of oppo­sites attract­ing in Raine Allen-Miller’s direc­to­r­i­al debut, Rye Lane. Two young Lon­don­ers turn a chance meet­ing into an event­ful on-foot expe­di­tion that sees the pair con­fronting their pasts and grad­u­al­ly open­ing them­selves up to new possibilities.

When Dom (David Jon­s­son) and Yas (Vivian Oparah) first encounter each oth­er, it’s less of a meet-cute and more of a weep-cute. Heart­bro­ken in the wake of dis­o­cov­er­ing his girl­friend of 7 years has cheat­ed on him with his best friend, Dom has seen bet­ter days and sits sob­bing while doom scrolling through her social media posts in a toi­let stall. His sobs are over­heard by Yas, who lat­er recog­nis­es him from his footwear and intro­duces her­self. Unlike Dom, Yas hums with effer­ves­cent, chaot­ic ener­gy, and it’s imme­di­ate­ly clear that she’s the antithe­sis of Dom’s more pas­sive mamma’s boy.

Despite Dom’s ini­tial wari­ness of Yas’ over­fa­mil­iar­i­ty, the pair soon find them­selves strolling down the epony­mous Rye Lane, and it’s revealed that Dom is about to attend a din­ner with his ex and best friend. This sets in motion a day-long quest across the city, not only to lib­er­ate Dom from his emo­tion­al bag­gage but to empow­er Yas to shake off her own insecurities.

The film’s strongest asset is its vivid sto­ry­telling. As the duo fills each oth­er – and by exten­sion, the audi­ence – in on their pre­vi­ous sit­u­a­tions, Allen-Miller toys with per­spec­tive, and the result presents as a series of car­toon­ish skits that move quick­ly and seam­less­ly between real­i­ty and fan­ta­sy. This device not only adds a love­ly comedic edge to pro­ceed­ings but also deep­ens the relata­bil­i­ty of the char­ac­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly in regard to Dom’s often awk­ward sense of self. While the skit-like nature of the com­e­dy works well as a flash­back or fan­ta­sy device, it occa­sion­al­ly wears thin in the sec­ond act, where the humour feels lit­tle more than scenes from a sketch show we’ve seen before.

Rye Lane itself is a place of venue of rich his­to­ry as a cor­ner­stone of Peckham’s iden­ti­ty. Depict­ed in British TV clas­sics from ​‘Only Fools and Hors­es’ to ​‘Desmonds’, Peck­ham is a mul­ti­cul­tur­al work­ing-class hub brim­ming with mar­kets, black hair shops and inde­pen­dent busi­ness­es. Though the area has become a light­ning rod for gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, the film doesn’t direct­ly engage with this dis­course and choos­es to keep its focus on high­light­ing a melt­ing pot of peo­ple and cul­tures in all its glo­ri­ous randomness.

From group yoga in the park, teens tak­ing self­ies in a grot­ty toi­let, to the man in a shiny blue cow­boy suit danc­ing through the shop­ping cen­tre, each exist­ing in the same few miles. These char­ac­ters con­tin­ue to dec­o­rate the frame as the love sto­ry of our leads unfolds and posi­tions Rye Lane as an enjoy­able slice of life in a cap­i­tal filled with end­less vari­ety. Run­ning at just 82 min­utes, Rye Lane fills its brief time with an infec­tious sense of joy and hopefulness.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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