Medicine For Melancholy (2008) - Barry Jenkins' Debut

 

It's always intriguing to watch a famous director's first movie, especially if it's not one that's very well-known. There's an uncertainty there: will you be wowed by an ambitious passion project or disappointed when your inflated expectations are not met?

 

Medicine For Melancholy (2008) was the first film directed by Barry Jenkins, a now critically-acclaimed African American director. Having seen If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), I was intrigued by the prospect of watching an earlier romantic film of his. Having now watched it, I will say they are not similar at all in look and ambiance, so be warned, but they are tangentially related in subject matter. Medicine For Melancholy is the work of an ambitious, but less polished director and very much has a student, festival feel to it. It's no surprise to me that it thrived in that context and little else. That's not to say the film isn't engaging though.

 

In Medicine For Melancholy, a black man and woman, Micah and Jo, wake up at a friend's party after a boozy one-night stand. They were strangers before that night, but over the course of a day in San Francisco, they get to know each other through discussions and clashes concerning race, their views on the city and relationships.

 

Both characters have differing visions of the world. Micah sees life primarily through the lens of race. As part of a Black minority in San Francisco (7% of the population as he reminds us), he's grown disillusioned with his native city which continues to aggressively gentrify and push out the less wealthy (the film is peppered with beautiful images of San Francisco, but also a meeting of citizens concerned with the city's direction).

 

On the other hand, Jo, a San Francisco transplant dating a seemingly well-to-do white man bristles at Micah's "simplistic" world view. Whereas Micah is comfortable defining his whole person as "Black", she finds this viewpoint reductionist and unrepresentative of his whole person. Micah retorts that society's gaze is simplistic, he cannot help being what other people see.

 

Despite their differences, they are still brought together by the shared experience and history of blackness. A trip to the museum and an exhibition on slavery yields a thoughtful, tender moment. After another boozy night however, the differences prove too much. Micah attacks Jo's own relationship, lamenting how, in his view, every interracial relationship is a "black person holding on to a white person". That unflattering comment is the final straw, Jo will stay the night and leave early the next morning.

 

Earlier in the movie, when Jo looks over Micah's MySpace profile (yes, yes), she catches a series of photos of Micah with his ex, a white woman. That previously mentioned ugly remark was not so simple then; a mixture of the projection of his own insecurity, pain following a breakup, the estrangement he feels in his own native city and likely more.

 

Micah is not a frothing racist. Ironically, he has proven Jo's point though. How can race relations be simple, when even his own views on race have been tinged by his own painful history and experience?

 

Filmed with handheld camera and with desaturated colors to represent the characters' state of mind (and their hangover I guess), the movie is a love-hate letter to San Francisco and includes beautiful shots of that notoriously filmic city. Quite dense in subject matter, the film is still entertaining and enjoyable. These discussions take place as Micah and Jo are getting to know each other and happen organically as they move through a café, a museum, both characters' apartments, a bar, etc.

 

A solid low-budget debut for Barry Jenkins who shows an early knack for mood, worth watching for those interested in the subject matter, fans of San Francisco, completists or simply those looking for something a bit different. 

Where to watch

DVD (from IFC Films), iTunes