Rye Lane (Movie)

Subterms

    Latest story

    50 Shares99 Views

    ‘Oppenheimer’ Leads BAFTA Nominees

    by

    Christopher Nolan’s movie received 13 nods, and will compete for best picture against the likes of “Killers of The Flower Moon” and “Poor Things,” but not “Barbie.”“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s movie about the development of the atomic bomb, on Thursday received the highest number of nominations for this year’s EE British Academy Film Awards, known as the BAFTAs.The film secured 13 nods for Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, including for best film, where it is up against four other titles including “Killers of The Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese’s epic about the Osage murders of the 1920s, and “Poor Things,” Yorgos Lanthimos’s sexually-charged take on a Frankenstein story starring Emma Stone. “Poor Things” followed “Oppenheimer” with 11 nominations overall.The other titles nominated for best film are “Anatomy of a Fall,” Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner about a woman accused of murdering her husband, and “The Holdovers,” Alexander Payne’s tale of a boarding school teacher who has to look after students during the holidays.The nominations for “Oppenheimer” come just days after the movie won three of the major awards at this year’s Golden Globes, and will be seen by many as further boosting its chances at this year’s Oscars; the BAFTA and Oscar voting bodies overlap. This year’s Oscar nominations are scheduled to be announced on Tuesday.Although “Oppenheimer” secured the most nominations, the highest profile categories featured a variety of movies. In the best director category, Nolan, Triet and Payne were nominated alongside Bradley Cooper for “Maestro,” his biopic of Leonard Bernstein; Jonathan Glazer for “The Zone of Interest,” a movie about day-to-day life at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust; and Andrew Haigh for “All of Us Strangers,” an acclaimed British film about a lonely gay writer.Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal in “All of Us Strangers,” directed by Andrew Haigh.Parisa Taghizadeh/Searchlight Pictures, via Associated Press“Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster about the doll going on a journey of self-discovery, was not nominated in the best movie or best director categories, but Margot Robbie, its star, secured a nomination for best lead actress. Robbie will compete for that prize alongside the stars of other high-profile movies including Emma Stone (“Poor Things”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Fantasia Barrino (“The Color Purple”). Sandra Hüller was also nominated for “Anatomy of a Fall,” as was Vivian Oparah for her role in the British rom-com “Rye Lane,” set in a diverse part of south London.Lily Gladstone, who earlier this month became the first Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress for her performance in “Killers of The Flower Moon,” was not nominated for a BAFTA.Leonardo DiCaprio, Gladstone’s co-star, was also snubbed in the best actor category. That category’s nominees instead included Cillian Murphy for “Oppenheimer,” Cooper for “Maestro” and Barry Keoghan for “Saltburn.” They will compete against Paul Giamatti for his lead role in “The Holdovers,” Colman Domingo for “Rustin” and Teo Yoo for “Past Lives,” Celine Song’s wistful movie about two childhood friends who keep reuniting in later life.In 2020, the BAFTAs’ organizers overhauled the awards’ nomination processes in an attempt to improve the diversity of nominees. The changes included assigning voters 15 movies to watch each before making their selections. Sara Putt, the chair of BAFTA, said in an interview that the inclusion of Oparah among the leading actress nominees showed that the changes were helping to highlight smaller films, but she added that there was “still more to do” to increase diversity in the industry.The winners of this year’s BAFTAs are scheduled to be announced on Feb. 18 in a ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London, hosted by David Tennant. The ceremony will be broadcast on BritBox in the United States. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Rye Lane’ Review: A Lively Modern Rom-Com With a British Accent

      by

      Raine Allen-Miller’s feature debut revives the genre with exuberant performances and a vibrant South London setting.The director Raine Allen-Miller’s debut feature, “Rye Lane,” is self-assured in a way that recent, by-the-numbers rom-coms from the likes of Netflix have shied away from. Whereas some films make the mistake of equating “crowd-pleasing” with “generic,” Allen-Miller brings us right into the heart of South London alongside her characters. Every detail of the film is full of specificity, even as the dreams and insecurities of its two leads are ubiquitous genre staples.The meet-cute, however, is decidedly 2023: Dom (David Jonsson), clearly upset over a recent breakup, goes to have a private cry in a restroom stall at his friend’s art gallery opening, only to realize with embarrassment that the facilities are gender-neutral. The woman who walks in on him, Yas (Vivian Oparah), tries to reassure him through the stall door to no avail, but she later recognizes Dom out on the gallery floor from his pink Converse. The twist? Dom doesn’t recognize her voice.Before long, the two are bonding over the ways their respective exes wronged them — Dom’s partner cheated on him with his best friend, and Yas’s boyfriend, a pretentious sculptor, kept her treasured A Tribe Called Quest LP after she walked out on him, even though he scoffs at hip-hop. Spurred by their mutual heartbreak, Dom and Yas end up racing around London together, by foot and by moped, looking to settle the scores of their old relationships and growing closer as a result.“Rye Lane” finds familiar footing in bespoke rom-coms of years past. There’s Dom and Yas’s symbolic color coordination — his pink shoes match her shoulder bag — that channels the red-and-blue outfit motifs found in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love.” And the whole structure of the two characters walking-and-talking their way through the neighborhood is an obvious nod to Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy. But the film also takes cues from snappier sources, like the British cult hit “Peep Show” or even Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”Fast-paced flashbacks and quippy dialogue — including some true laugh-out-loud one-liners — keep a sense of momentum that carries itself throughout the film. And Allen-Miller isn’t afraid to be stylistically daring, with wide-angle lenses that follow Dom and Yas along city blocks, oddly dressed extras walking in and out of the frame, and eye-popping set designs around every corner. Yas’s memory of her ex-boyfriend’s apartment is very different from the real location we see later on, but both equally resemble a set dresser’s playground, stuffed to the brim with detail.Still, that liveliness wouldn’t feel genuine if not for its setting. The screenwriters of “Rye Lane,” Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, have credited Allen-Miller for the film’s honed-in focus on the neighborhoods of Peckham and Brixton — it was originally going to be set in Camden Market — that show off an eye for style mixed with the comforting. Whether it’s a date at a late-night chicken shop, a neon-lit karaoke bar, a Jamaican auntie’s backyard barbecue or the Peckhamplex movie theater on Rye Lane itself, the environments that Dom and Yas stumble through, and fall in love within, resemble a candy-colored interpretation of daily life in South London. This isn’t the kind of film to watch for in-depth commentary on the area’s rapid gentrification. But its primarily Black cast reflects who has lived in South London for decades, and Allen-Miller depicts the mix of aging residents and young artistic upstarts with the knowingness of someone who’s been in the heart of the melting pot.As Dom and Yas get to know each other over the evening, or several evenings — the film, at a tight 82 minutes, is purposely vague about how much time lapses between scenes — their mission to get back at lost love soon bumps up against an inevitable obstacle: being unable to move on. Setting itself apart from past British rom-coms like “Notting Hill” and “Love, Actually” (the latter of which gets a brief but memorable tribute here), “Rye Lane” isn’t afraid to depict its leads as young, brash and still coming into their own. Post-breakup, Dom has moved back in with his mother, playing video games while she makes him eggs and soldiers for breakfast. Yas, who initially looks like the more mature of the two, has a rude awakening to the fact that hopping on a scooter and riding away from her problems won’t make them vanish.It’s not a spoiler to say that at its conclusion, “Rye Lane” comes together as only the best rom-coms can, with one of those classic payoffs that’s designed to have you cheering at the movie screen. How Allen-Miller chooses to balance those moments with the unconventional is one of the film’s greatest strengths.Rye LaneRated R for raunchy humor and low-res nudes. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Rye Lane’ Aims to Show You a Real London Love Story

      by

      Like so many great romantic comedies, “Rye Lane” opens with a meet-cute.In the stalls of a unisex bathroom at an exhibition opening, Dom (David Jonsson) is stalking his ex-girlfriend on his phone and weeping. Yas (Vivian Oparah), in a nearby stall, hears his tears and asks if he’s OK. This brief exchange through the cubicle walls begins an unexpectedly long, and eventful, day for the Londoners.The film’s writers, Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, felt “Rye Lane” needed to somehow open in an art gallery, the pair said in a recent interview. Bryon said that Black people — like Yas and Dom — are rarely shown in the art world on film and TV.Opening the movie “in that space, with this group of cool, beautiful-looking Black people, that to me feels so special,” he said.Dom (Jonsson) and Yas (Oparah), foreground, meet at an art exhibition, a setting in which the writers felt it was important to see the characters.Searchlight PicturesThis opening is one of many ways the creators of “Rye Lane,” which opens in theaters in Britain on Friday and will come to Hulu in the United States on March 31, aim to tell a love story set in South London that feels true to their experiences, and their city.“The story is really simple. It’s two people walking around, talking about their breakups,” said Raine Allen-Miller, the film’s director, in an interview. “They meet at the wrong time, but also the perfect time.”Dom, who is heartbroken after his girlfriend left him for his best friend, is timid and openly emotional, which Jonsson particularly admires. “I love his vulnerability. I think that there’s something quite gorgeous about a young Black man being straight-up heartbroken,” Jonsson said in an interview. “I’ve been heartbroken, but would I have allowed myself to go into a restroom and cry my eyes out? Probably not.”In contrast, Yas — who has also recently come out of a relationship, for reasons that unfold as the film does — is energetic, and prefers to offer a more curated version of herself.The pair spend the day wandering around Peckham and Brixton, two lively and multicultural South London neighborhoods a short bus ride from each other. “Rye Lane” takes its title from a main street in Peckham, and these two neighborhoods become central characters in the film.Dom and Yas stumble across scenarios and tableaus that celebrate the area’s quirkiness: a man dressed in mismatched clothing, including large animal jewelry, hands out social justice fliers; a woman in a bunny costume, reminiscent of Bridget Jones, smokes a cigarette outside a large house; at one point, a person in a cowboy outfit skips past.The film’s director, Raine Allen-Miller, said she was “trying to make a film that is a funny, happy day in South London.”Suzie Howell for The New York TimesBryon and Melia said they initially envisioned the two characters strolling through Camden, a popular part of north London, also known for its exuberance. But when they sent Allen-Miller the script, she said she would only join the team if the film (her directorial debut) was set in South London. She wanted to “almost write a love letter” to the area, she said, having moved there at 12 to live with her father and grandmother. “One of my fondest memories is walking around Brixton Market with my grandma and getting Jamaican spices,” she said.Melia had previously lived in Brixton, and felt the location still “matched what we were going for.” The script’s first draft “was a bit more like ‘Before Sunrise,’ insofar as it could almost be one shot,” he said. “By the time Raine read it, it had developed a bit further away from that anyway.”The finished film is shot in a saturated color palette, and in parts with a fisheye camera lens. The dreamy, joyful atmosphere is in stark contrast with how Peckham and Brixton were once depicted in the mainstream British press. In 2007, The Guardian reported that “for more than a generation,” Peckham had “been linked with drugs, gangs and violent murders.”Recently, these areas in South London have also experienced significant gentrification, with house prices rising and wealthier people moving in, inadvertently hurting longstanding locals. In the upcoming book “All The Houses I’ve Ever Lived In,” the journalist Kieran Yates details how, while living in Peckham in 2017, she witnessed “the sheer speed at which wealthy property developers saw an opportunity to move in.” She later moved to Brixton, where an “influx of restaurants, farmer’s markets, galleries, cafes and bars has led to a spike in rent,” she wrote.The film has a dreamy, joyful atmosphere and is shot in a saturated color palette.Chris Harris/Searchlight PicturesIn making “Rye Lane,” Allen-Miller said she was “trying to make a film that is a funny, happy day in South London,” before the effects of gentrification made the area completely unrecognizable. “I just wanted to put it on a plinth, and capture the bits of it that are beautiful and special,” she added.This celebration is helped by cameos from well-known figures in Britain: the comedians Munya Chawawa and Michael Dapaah, the “It’s a Sin” actor Omari Douglas and the reality TV star Fredrik Ferrier. But one actor will be familiar to all viewers: Serving burritos in a shop named Love Guac’tually is the godfather of rom-coms himself, Colin Firth.Early in production, having a Firth cameo felt like a pipe dream to the writers. But the film’s executive producer, Sophie Meyer, had worked with the actor on the 2007 British comedy “St. Trinian’s,” and sent him a text. “We were like, ‘Yeah, good luck’,” Melia said. But Firth agreed, and was “such a good sport,” Byron said. “It is also such a lovely nod to rom-coms for us.”A small service-industry role like that “would normally maybe be the only person of color in a different film,” Melia said. Here, a white Oscar winner is playing it.Whatever the viewer’s knowledge of London and its various neighborhoods, the creators of “Rye Lane” hope the film will offer a fresh (and fun) perspective on the city.“The more traditional rom-coms show Londoners by the London Eye or Tower Bridge. But, let’s be honest, most Londoners are not having a pint by Tower Bridge because it will cost you 15 pounds,” Bryon said. “We wanted the movie and the location to feel personal to the audience who know it, and also to introduce Rye Lane to those coming to London.” More