Awkward love stories are not unusual, however they are seldom about African Americans or as elegantly told as this film. The normalcy of the main characters existence, in one of the world’s most beautiful cities, sets the stage for the complexity of racial transformation. The juxtaposition, that some of us want to keep what we’ve got and others want to move on to something new and that reconciliation is both difficult and necessary.
Medicine for Melancholy is a small film which tries to tell a lot and succeeds for the most part. It goes to show that you don’t need a huge budget to make a movie that tells a good story and enlightens its audience.
I am hopeful that the Director, Barry Jenkins, is still working his craft and will get the opportunity to continue to do insightful movie making.
Wyatt Cenac, Tracy Heggins and Barry Jenkins