Medicine for Melancholy

Director: Barry Jenkins Barry Jenkins

Overview

Fate (and alcohol) brings two people together in this independent romantic comedy-drama. Joanne (Tracey Heggins) and Micah (Wyatt Cenac) wake up together one morning after a drunken one-night stand, the result of attending a late-night party at the home of a mutual friend. It becomes clear they don't know each other very well and after sharing breakfast, Joanne isn't interested in getting to know Micah any better. However, when Micah discovers that Joanne has misplaced her wallet, he stops by her apartment to return it, and they end up spending the day together. Joanne and Micah don't appear to have much in common; she's well-to-do and lives in San Francisco's pricey Marina District, while he has a flat in the rough-and-tumble Tenderloin and works with a group of activists struggling to make housing affordable in the city by the bay. As the day wears on, Joanne and Micah become increasingly aware of a genuine mutual attraction, but they also realize just how different they really are. The first feature film from writer and director Barry Jenkins, Medicine for Melancholy received its premiere at the 2008 San Francisco International Film Festival.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/27/2009
UPC:	0030306950396
Original Release:	2007
Rating:	NR
Source:	IFC INDEPENDENT FILM
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:28:00
Sales rank:	52,469

Special Features

Trailer; Director's notes: An in-depth interview with Barry Jenkins at the London Film Festival

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Wyatt Cenac	Micah
Tracey Heggins	Jo
Melissa Bisagni	Cassandra
Elizabeth Acker	Housing Rights Committee Member
Erin Klenow	Museum Staff Member
Powell DeGrange	Housing Rights Committee Member
Chida Emeka	Housing Rights Committee Member
John Friedberg	Housing Rights Committee Member
Dana Julius	Housing Rights Committee Member
Phoebe Chi Ching Kwok	Housing Rights Committee Member
Tommi Avicolli Mecca	Housing Rights Committee Member
Adam Moskowitz	Housing Rights Committee Member
Jennifer Sanchez	Housing Rights Committee Member
Kenyatta Sheppard	Actor
DeMorge Brown	MOAD Voice

Technical Credits

Barry Jenkins

Barry Jenkins	Director,Screenwriter
Justin Barber	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy is a movie that tries -- with limited success -- to straddle two points-of-view. On the one hand, it's a finely acted mostly two-person drama, low-key and very naturalistic, about Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Jo (Tracey Heggins), who meet in what is essentially a one-night stand that gets extended -- and in the course of their interaction, they discover that each is not comfortable with the way the other deals with being African-American in San Francisco, the major city with the smallest African-American population of any in the United States. That part of the movie, which is finely played and carefully delineated across the dialogue and action, works beautifully, and makes Medicine for Melancholy well worth seeing -- the acting is nothing less than exquisite in its ease and naturalness, and one often forgets that it is actors that we are watching. What works less well is Jenkins' broader topical concern, about development and gentrification in San Francisco, which is, in fact, pushing the middle-class and the poor -- and, by extension, minorities -- out of the city (one of the most expensive to live in among major U.S. cities). That material feels as though it has been dropped into the script and the continuity, and while it isn't so jarring as to break up the effect of the performances, it is a distraction that might have been woven in more carefully, if not re-thought entirely, despite the fact that it does relate to some of the conflicts between the two central characters. That flaw aside, this is a beautifully made film, with especially careful use (or non-use) of color, which is muted to the point of near-monochrome through most of the picture, except at certain strategic points where it does blaze forth, with good results. And the resulting picture is very finely made, if not as carefully written and structured as it might have been, with a little less impassioned topicality.