The best rom-com of 2023? Don't miss Rye Lane!

[This review was originally published three months ago at Give Me Some Light on Substack. Subscribe, and you'll get these reviews while the movie is still brand new!]

Maybe I’m just a sucker right now for movies that begin with grief and end with joy. I don’t know. But on the date night when Anne and I took a chance on Rye Lane — now streaming on Hulu — the evening very quickly felt like a celebration of a long overdue springtime. The weather outside was frightful, but we found this jaunt around South London just so delightful.

I’d first heard the buzz from Sundance. That doesn’t mean what it used to, by the way — it just means that a few of my students watched streaming-access features from the film festival right here in Seattle. And for one in particular, this was a highlight. “I may have already seen my favorite movie of the year!” he announced.

In hopes that I might be pleasantly surprised, I avoided detailed reviews until the Hulu debut. And I got to experience the joys of Raine Allen Miller’s debut rom-com without any preconceived notions about where it would take me — except that I’d been splashed by a wave of Before Sunrise comparisons.

And okay, sure: A young man and a young woman meet and meander and talk a lot. That happens in Before Sunset, too. And there's more than one winking allusion to the last line of that movie's sequel — "Baby, you're gonna miss that plane." But that's the extent of it. Instead of travelers from two different countries meeting and exploring somewhere else, their sexual tension rising to a fever pitch, we get two Londoners meeting in a unisex bathroom and adventuring around the city together, fighting the break-up blues with caper comedy and cutesy goofball mishaps.

This is much more calibrated for crowd-pleasing than any Richard Linklater love story. Rye Lane isn’t really intent on introducing us to real-world human beings with their complexities and nuance. It’s a a formula rom-com that loves formula rom-coms—so much so that it includes an eye-roller of an allusion to Love Actually. And its characters are only “complicated” in that they’re stuck in personal crises that would usually suggest a rebound relationship is a bad idea. But that’s all fine, as it juices up the routine with audacious aesthetics, some flipped genre cliches, some reversals of expectations, some solid laughs, refreshingly efficient editing, a groovy playlist, and show-no-mercy silliness. In The Irish Times, Donald Clarke writes, “The structure could hardly be more traditional, or the final romantic gesture (truly delightful) more in line with the gospel of Wilder and Lubitsch. But the bebop cutting and the busy mise-en-scène ensure the audience is forever on an agreeable edge.” If this genre is your jam, I think you’re unlikely to find an entry more engaging in 2023.

Miller’s movies sets up its meet cute in a unisex bathroom, where Dom (David Jonsson) is sobbing over Instagram evidence that his dream girl has left him for his best friend, and where the aptly named Yas (Vivian Oparah) is a manic pixie Yas Queen! girl seems eager to find a broken-hearted boy she can pep talk in order to dodge her own troubling business. Here’s where the movie dips a toe in Before Sunrise’s waters: Yas starts walking with Dom, poking and prodding his broken heart with questions, challenging his self-destructive paradigms, and prying open his eyes to the realm of possibility.

In her review at RogerEbert.com, Peyton Robinson writes that Rye Lane “leans into the awkwardness of its characters, earning its empathy with reality instead of fantasy.” That’s true. Despite the color-scheme being turned up to “11,” and the contexts suffering an overdose of quirk, there is something about these conversations that seems familiar. “This is a romance you may know,” Robinson adds, “not one you only see in the movies.” I would suggest revising that: This is a relationship I know. The fact that it blooms into romance feels more like a requirement of the genre. I might have enjoyed the film even more if the storytellers had mustered the courage to develop something more unexpected and plausible: a one-of-a-kind friendship.

But then, so many of our experiences at the movies are influenced by our experiences outside the movies. I had a good female friend named Melody who gave me similar pep talks almost 30 years ago when I thought a woman of my dreams had ruined my love life forever. At the time, I appreciated Melody’s efforts, but couldn’t yet believe in her reassurances that this might be a good thing, a chance to find something better. Now I look back with gratitude for her attention and her time, even though our conversations never veered into romance. (She was already on her way to the altar with somebody else, and I was too hurt to imagine anything more.) Why not make movies about relationships and conversations like that?

So, it’s not Yas’s motivational therapy that tests my suspension of disbelief here. And it’s not Dom’s interest in Yas, as she’s flaunting dangerous levels of charm. She’s a fireworks show that lights up his sky in his darkest hour. (The movie seems calibrated to make Oparah a major star; I doubt Jonsson's career will take off like hers does.)

What boggles my mind is how Yas could fall for Dom with Dom in this condition. And so quickly! As they wander the streets of South London, as Yas convinces Dom to challenge his ex and his friend for their mad cruelty, and as she then convinces Dom to help her steal back some treasured vinyl from an ex of her own, there’s enough going on that viewers might not have the time to ask themselves: What does she see in him?

I mean, I get it: We can never know what draws some people together. But my puzzlement over why she makes so many first moves here ... it became an unscratchable itch. Your enjoyment of this movie will depend largely on whether you think these two can fall in love. That’s where I’m having trouble.

Yes, as anyone who’s seen it will tell you, the leads are adorable together. But the most inspiring love story here is the one between director Raine Allen-Miller and South London, which is so alive with bold colors, lived-in textures, international flavors, and spicy aromas. I'll follow her into any genre just to see what other neighborhoods she's excited about.

So, re-up your subscription to Hulu, pop the popcorn, poor two glasses of wine, and have a good date night with Rye Lane. Just don’t set your expectations to Before Sunset levels.

For some reason, as the movie was playing I kept expecting to see John Boyega and other cast members from Attack the Block. This feels like a romantic comedy that could take place in the same world as that fantastic alien invasion flick. Come to think of it, I’d love to see Jonsson and Oparah stealing scenes in the upcoming Attack the Block sequel. They'd fit right, even if they played the same characters. Maybe Edgar Wright is a better comparison here for Raine Allen-Miller than Richard Linklater.

I’m grateful for this bright, shiny, stylish good time at the movies. It comes crashing into my season of disappointment with the same high spirits that Yas brings to the broken-hearted Dom. I needed the colors. I needed the laughs. I needed the music. I’m going to drive to work and back with this movie's playlist for a while, and I expect the colors of my commute will suddenly seem hyper-saturated. These days, a little color therapy wouldn’t hurt.

What others are saying:

Esther Zuckerman at indieWire:

Allen-Miller packs every frame with sumptuous color. Some of it comes from the landscape of Peckham — the bright green of the park grass or the multihued graffiti on the street or the painted gates on the shops of Rye Lane Market — but some of it is purely of her own invention. The karaoke sequence is a mix of neon greens and pinks and purples.

Alison Willmore at Vulture:

Rye Lane was filmed in the spring of 2021 and has the unmistakable energy of the first nice day of the year, when everyone in a city is out and about, whether it’s to run errands, to hang out in the park, or to meander the way Dom and Yas are. The movie’s London is vibrant, random, and immigrant-driven, and it bustles in the background of every shot, whether it’s children shooting a TikTok dance, a shirtless man leaning out a terraced-house window, or a Tai Chi class full of senior citizens in the park. Rye Lane asks you to fall in love with Dom and Yas, but failing that, it will have you hopelessly smitten with its South London setting and with that feeling of having the day open and nothing to do but wander and see what may happen.

Michael Phillips at The Houston Chronicle:

Even when the screenplay favors an arch quality when we wouldn’t mind a looser, easier-going touch — it’s as stylized and storybook-ish a vision of modern London as the delightful “Paddington” films — the actors, chiefly Oparah and David Jonsson, make for highly engaging company.

by Jeffrey Overstreet

First impressions of Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning

[This full review is now available for subscribers who support Give Me Some Light over at Substack. It will eventually be published in full here.]

The sun has officially set on Indiana Jones.

And what a disappointing sunset it was. Moviegoers fell in love with that whip-cracking, wise-cracking, Nazi-blasting, fedora-wearing archaeologist because of a 1-hour 55-minute cliffhanger classic of standard-setting stunts and practical effects. Light was real light. Actors were real actors. And the feelings we felt were as much about discovery and awe as they were about action. Every scene and every shot contributed to our suspension of disbelief.

We say farewell with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: an unnecessary, over-long (2 hours 34 minutes) marathon of poorly lit action and obviously half-animated characters in which there isn’t much to care about and everything feels familiar. Almost every scene and almost every shot contributes to our disbelief.

And then — speaking of disbelief — things take a turn for the much, much worse. Like the sputtering sound of air being let out of a balloon, Indy speaks the single-most disheartening line of dialogue in the entire franchise. When asked what he has learned in his many decades of adventure, Indiana Jones actually answers with words alarmingly similar to the “wisdom” delivered by the conductor of The Polar Express: “It’s not so much what you believe — it’s how hard you believe it.”

Wow — the QAnon folks are going to love that! Truth? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you commit yourself to whatever nonsense you choose! It’s just as worthwhile to commit yourself wholeheartedly to lies than to the truth, so long as you walk hard, young man!

Imagine Indy reading the hate-screed manifestos of mass shooters, or the watching the trials of the January 6th insurrectionists, and responding with such dangerously irresponsible nonsense. Would we ever care to follow him anywhere again?

So, yes… it’s an anticlimactic sunset for Indy, at best. If I could turn back to the clock, I would closed the series at the end of Last Crusade… or maybe even at the end of Raiders.

But Mission: Impossible movies?

Well, the sun may still be rising on director Christopher McQuarrie, Tom Cruise, and company. While my frustrations with certain aspects of the franchise are growing, I think it’s possible we may yet see the best this series has to offer. Here is a cast of characters who believe in Capital “T” Truth, and who will dedicate their lives to making sure that the Truth wins out over deception.

Unlike the storytellers and action-scene designers of the latest Indy film, these filmmakers are showing us that they’ve learned some of the best lessons that Raiders of the Lost Ark has to offer: I may dream of a series that has greater sense of spirit (like Raiders did), something to complicate its “Scientological” worship of a white male hero (like Raiders did), and women less likely to worship the leading man (like Raiders did). But I love that the M:I company want their audiences to be surprised and amazed and laughing and getting all fifteen bucks’ worth of adventure. They’re bringing much of what is necessary to inspire that Raiders kind of wonder: real light, real stunts, real actors, and a compelling musical score that we can actually hear through the chaos (like Raiders did). They want us leaning forward, slack-jawed, giddy, pounding the arms of our chairs to the beat, and asking “How did they do that?!”

The stage is set for Dead Reckoning Part Two to be the apex of the sun’s arc on this series — but it is difficult to imagine how Part Two matches Part One for relentlessly jaw-dropping action. This, like Fallout before it, is showing every other action franchise — including Bond and the MCU — how things should be done.

What’s it about? ...

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by Jeffrey Overstreet

How to Blow Up a Pipeline: a call to arms to save the world

[This review was originally published at Give Me Some Light on April 10, 2023, while this film was still in theaters.]

I recently showed a class full of undergraduates the Coen Brothers’ 1988 comedy Raising Arizona. You probably know the film, and perhaps you remember this moment:

Furniture salesman Nathan Arizona (Trey Wilson) has offered a cash reward for the rescue of his kidnapped infant son Nathan Junior, and an opportunistic bounty hunter has blown like a tumbleweed into his office. This massive, muscle-bound, tattooed motorcyclist is Leonard Smalls — a.k.a. “The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse.” And Smalls isn't here to take the offer: He’s here to bargain.

Irked, Arizona replies that Smalls should take his deal or get out. But Smalls isn’t finished. He says he’s only asking for a “fair price” — one that “the market will bear.” He reveals that he is, himself, a survivor of a black market for babies, and then adds, “There are people — and, mind you, I know ’em — that’ll pay a lot more than $25,000 for a healthy baby. … I’ll get the boy regardless. And if you don’t pay, the market will.”

Smalls has come right out and said what so many other businesses conceal behind deceptive rhetoric: He would find a stolen baby and, instead of returning him to his grieving parents, he would sell the baby on the black market himself. And make a fortune. And why not, in a country that justifies so much harmful activity in the name of “the pursuit of [personal] happiness”?

Students, to their credit, were repulsed by this heartless, dollar-driven monster. Surely we can all agree that this is, as Nathan Arizona himself puts it, “an evil man.” He is showing us the dark side of capitalism, the consequences that can come from prioritizing profit above all else. “It’s just business,” some might say. But at what cost?

So here’s a question:

If you think conscience demands that we stop human traffickers, how far are you willing to go to stop them? If weapons prove necessary for intervention and the rescue of vulnerable innocents from fortune-hungry opportunists, will you support that violence as justified?

Now, put yourself in the shoes of the young idealists who join forces in the film How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

The film, directed by Daniel Goldhaber, is based on a non-fiction book of the same title by climate change activist Andreas Malm. The book is a manifesto, really, praised by The Los Angeles Review of Books as “[o]ne of the most important things written about the climate crisis” and a “profoundly necessary book.” The film takes Malm’s propositions and imagines a narrative about what a real-world rebellion against heartless capitalism might look like.

The team of would-be Avengers who plot a rebellion in How to Blow Up a Pipeline don’t inspire much confidence. Young Xochi (Ariela Barer) might come closest to qualifying as the Brains of this outfit. She’s already posting mission statements on the windows of luxury cars and slashing their tires. She’s angry. When she buried her mother, who died in a heat wave, Xochi could look back over her shoulder and see evidence of the cause: plumes of smoke rising from a factory. But the Brawn is certainly Dwayne (Jake Weary), who is losing all patience with oil companies as they force their way onto his family property to chart the course of a pipeline.

But a plan like this has a lot of moving pieces, and so they need a lot of help. Xochi brings her college friends Shawn (Marcus Scriber) and Theo (Sasha Lane) on board. (If you'd told me that this takes place in the AHCU — the American Honey Cinematic Universe — and Sasha Lane is still playing the same character from that Andrea Arnold film, I might have believed you.) Shawn shares Xochi’s strong convictions, but for Theo it’s even more personal: she’s angry about the chemical causes of the cancer that is killing her. (In a world designed to favor big business over human decency, how’s a young woman like Theo to afford healthcare?) And then there’s Alisha (Jayme Lawson), who signs on reluctantly for Theo’s sake, mostly out of loving loyalty for her dying girlfriend.

Then there are Logan (Lukas Gage) and Rowan (Kristine Froseth) — lovers who look likely to miss their cues in carrying out the plan, probably because they’re too horny or too stoned. If you’re placing bets early on what’s likely to go wrong, you’ll probably pick on them.

But who can blame this anxious crew for doing their best to make a difference while the rest of the world amuses itself to death? They want a future — a future for themselves and for all who come after them. They believe that the future of Planet Earth has been taken hostage, that it’s being sold to the highest bidder. They see oil companies accelerating even though the oil business is destroying the planet’s climate and propelling Planet Earth headlong into a crisis that humankind cannot survive.

Just as you and I might decide that force is necessary to rescue stolen babies from armed human traffickers, so they have decided that it’s time to blow stuff up to try and save the planet those babies depend on.

They see clearly that it would be mad to do nothing. And, as my students saw it in Leonard Smalls, they see not merely ignorance at work but a sort of demonic villainy. Isn’t violence against a mad murderer an act of self defense? Isn’t their desire to strike at these companies, to hit them where it hurts, reasonable?

If no amount of negotiation is making any difference, and if the oil companies have strapped a ticking time bomb to the planet, what harm is there is strapping a ticking time bomb to their oil pipelines? Why not try to blow up their unethical operations before they blow up an inhabitable earth?

Ah, but this band of heroes are acting in violation of laws — laws set up to protect businesses and business owners at the expense of, well, everyone else. Thus, as they conspire to try to save humankind, they are sure to be branded “terrorists.”

“If the American empire is calling us terrorists,” says Michael, “then we're doing something right.”

Michael, perhaps the most essential member of the team, is a young Native American who feels the weight of the injustices suffered by his people. He’s been investing his rage in desperate, devil-may-care activism: He studies and makes videos about the art of low-budget bomb-making. And if that isn’t enough to get his name on FBI watch lists, he also posts videos of his own violent confrontations with workers on North Dakota oil rigs. Played with simmering fury by Forrest Goodluck, Michael is the character who occasionally makes me feel that I’m watching a documentary instead of a thriller, even though his fierce eyes and his storm-tossed hair make him look like a mythic hero. He hurtles forward headlong, impatient, so that we believe he will try to pull off this mission all by himself if he doubts, even for a moment, the dedication of his co-conspirators. (Matt Zoller Seitz at RogerEbert.com aptly compares Goodluck’s screen presence to that of Michael Shannon, “an actor who can communicate that a character's mind is racing in a dozen directions even when he's handling whatever's right in front of him.”)

These characters, their plight, and their plan are all more than enough to make How to Blow Up a Pipeline an exciting ordeal of white-knuckle suspense and intellectual challenges. We’re invested. We want to see them succeed in shaking up the systems that have set humanity on a trajectory toward self-inflicted extinction. But do we want them to do so with violence, and with violence that is likely to get one or more of them killed? I rarely feel as conflicted watching heroes fight injustice as I feel watching this rebellion against the empire. But that’s because most movies make rebellions look too easy, too simplistic, too clean. The Good Guys of Star Wars who won my admiration in childhood now seem dangerously and deceptively simplistic, and so my generation’s storytellers, expanding on the Star Wars legacy, feel compelled to address more complicated ethical questions in necessarily messier sequels like Rogue One and The Last Jedi and in tangential series like Andor.

Unfortunately, How to Blow Up a Pipeline ends up feeling like it might not be grownup enough for its subject matter. I’m not talking about how it engages us with difficult questions; I’m talking about the artistry of its storytelling. It’s so difficult to pull off a movie like this without succumbing to the temptation to preach. The screenwriters — director Jordan Sjol and actress Ariela Barer — invest so much inspiration and energy into revealing the characters’ backstories and their suspenseful collaboration in setting up the explosives that the lack of forethought about what comes next becomes, in the final moments, painfully evident. What runs brilliantly for 90 minutes as an effective and thought-provoking adrenaline rush (as well as an X-ray and diagnosis of the rising anxiety prevalent in almost all of those 20-something and younger) stumbles at the finish line.

I find a similar sentiment in the Letterboxd post from Josh Larsen of Filmspotting: “How to Blow Up a Pipeline eventually sets aside the ethical debates its characters occasionally gesture toward to become its own political act, which feels somewhat at odds with the suspense trappings.”

Similarly, Michael Asmus at Letterboxd writes that

[A] call to arms feels lacking without an adjoined call to hope. Instead of letting the events play out and leave us to walk away weighing the costs, it confirms it's actions as good, and wants us to agree. There's some consequence, but no imagination for what's next. I hesitate to call it propaganda by any stretch, as there's artful moments which are surprising and affecting. But instead I left a bit let down….

Letterboxd’s own Mitchell Beaupre also acknowledges the film’s last-minute stumble: “There’s something anticlimactic about how the film concludes. Not that I’d want anything different to happen necessarily, but maybe certain reveals and tying up of all the threads was a little too abrupt and/or a little too clean.”

Indeed. After an hour and 40 minutes of excitement, it’s unfortunate that the film runs two misguided minutes further.

But I agree with all that Beaupre admires about it, including its spiritual connection to another recent film about this present darkness:

Not sure I’ve seen a film dig so effectively into the question of what we can do to try and make some kind of difference when at this point all hope seems so truly lost. First Reformed is the only one that really comes to mind and they’d pair well in that way, but while Schrader’s film takes the existential approach, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is dirty, on the ground, focusing on people who are really trying to do something, anything with what little time we have left to actualize change.

So, while I highly recommend this film as one of 2023’s most impressive, I also think it’s imperative that we follow it with rigorous conversations, exercising conviction and conscience. Is a violent rebellion against a wicked empire the only way forward? Is a refusal to blow up pipelines a sign that we have given up, and that we’re willing to enable the enemy?

I turn to J.R.R. Tolkien, who survived what was arguably World War One’s most horrific battle. He believed in the sovereignty of God as I do. And in The Lord of the Rings he does not condemn armies that march out in force against a world-destroying warlord. Indeed — he makes the focus of the mission an act of violence against the enemy’s most destructive tool: He has heroes risk their lives to destroy the Ring of Power. But Tolkien also acknowledges that no one really wins at war. His narrative is about how his most innocent and virtuous hero is corrupted by evil on the very path to blow it all up. This is why the saga seems haunted, burdened, fashioned as much to be a lament over the terrible choices available to us in resisting the Enemy. He wrote in a letter in 1956: “… [O]ne must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however 'good' ….”

But then he added another clause — one in which abides all of his hopes for salvation: “… and the Writer of the Story is not one of us.”

Indeed, I must find my ultimate hope and comfort in the grand design of grace. We may destroy the world God gave us. And we may do more harm than good in striving to rid the world of its cancers and trying to strengthen the things that remain. But even if Planet Earth becomes uninhabitable, there is a more expansive story — one in which even death is defeated. We may have to turn to fantasy stories and fairy tales to get a taste of it, since we cannot realize it here and now. But there are reasons such stories carry the ring of truth. As evil empires devour themselves in their madness, there is an as-yet-to-be-revealed resurrection on the way, one we cannot yet imagine because its only precedent is what we’re celebrating here, today, as I write this on an Easter Sunday.

So, while I stop short of a whole-hearted, clear-conscience endorsement of this movie’s conspiracy itself, I cannot condemn the rebellion — or these beautiful rebels. The destruction they unleash is respectful of human life, not murderous. Their cause is just, their arguments compelling, their methods meaningful. In their heartbreak and desperation, I hear the poetry of David Bowie:

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through...

by Jeffrey Overstreet