Rye Lane: South London Technicolor

Raine Allen-Miller’s Rye Lane, which premiered at Sundance 2023 and received a specifically well-distributed theatrical and streaming release through Searchlight, is the specific kind of contemporary British romantic comedy that I keep recommending to people who claim the genre is dead. It is also, in its modest way, a film I think will age into the specific canon of recent British cinema.

What the film is

Dom (David Jonsson), a recently-dumped accountant in his late twenties, and Yas (Vivian Oparah), a costume designer whose own relationship has just collapsed, meet in the unisex toilets of a South London art gallery where Dom is crying and Yas is attempting to evacuate a specifically complicated personal emergency of her own. They spend the next day walking across South London together, each helping the other execute a specific small piece of post-breakup business: Yas needs to retrieve her favourite vinyl record from her ex-boyfriend’s flat; Dom needs to confront the friend who specifically slept with his now-ex.

The film unfolds across a single day and is shot almost entirely on location in Peckham, Brixton, and the specific South London neighbourhoods the two characters are navigating. It runs 82 minutes. It is, in its specifically unassuming way, a genuinely well-constructed piece of romantic-comedy cinema.

What makes it specifically good

Three specific things.

First, Allen-Miller’s direction. The film is shot in a specifically saturated colour palette that recalls specifically American romantic comedies of the 1990s (Amélie-adjacent, if we want a nearer reference). The specific Peckham and Brixton locations are photographed with specific affection, as living communities rather than as backdrop. The film has a specific sense of place that most contemporary British indie cinema does not bother developing.

Second, the specific lead chemistry. Jonsson (also excellent in Industry) and Oparah have specific on-screen rapport that rom-com casting is often unable to achieve. Their rhythms match. Their reactions register at appropriately different speeds. The specific way they walk together, talk over each other, interrupt and recover, is the specific texture of an actually-working romantic pair.

Third, the film’s specific unwillingness to be bigger than it needs to be. Rye Lane is 82 minutes. It does not contain a third-act dramatic obstacle. It does not contain a romantic-comedy meet-the-parents sequence. It does not contain an “I love you” climax. The film simply follows Dom and Yas across their single day, lets the specific connection between them build, and ends when the day ends.

The Colin Firth cameo

I want to flag the specific Colin Firth cameo that plays a supporting role in one of the film’s mid-act sequences. Firth appears as himself (or a specifically self-adjacent version), running a Mexican burrito restaurant in Brixton. The cameo is the film’s single strangest formal decision, and it works. Allen-Miller has understood that the specific British rom-com tradition contains a specific quota of deliberately absurd elements, and the Firth cameo satisfies that quota without breaking the film’s otherwise realistic register.

The specifically British rom-com tradition

Rye Lane is, explicitly, in conversation with the specific British romantic-comedy tradition that produced Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and the earlier Richard Curtis films. Allen-Miller’s film is, in its specific way, an update of that tradition, transplanted from specifically upper-middle-class white London to specifically working-class Black London.

The specific achievement is that the film updates the genre without losing what worked about the original tradition. The specific rhythms of the dialogue, the specific willingness to let the leads simply talk at length, the specific belief that romance is primarily about conversation rather than about plot mechanics, are all preserved. What changes is the specific social geography.

Where it sits

Rye Lane grossed a specifically modest amount in its theatrical run and has since accumulated a specifically dedicated audience on streaming (it is on Hulu in the US). Allen-Miller has signed to direct her second feature, which is, as of this writing, in pre-production. Jonsson has continued to accumulate significant work (including his breakout role in Industry Season 3). Oparah has continued working in UK television.

The broader significance of Rye Lane is that it demonstrates the specific viability of the small-scale British romantic comedy as a contemporary form. If American indie cinema has lost its mid-budget romantic comedy (and it substantially has), British indie cinema has a specific opportunity to fill the space. Allen-Miller’s film is the clearest recent argument for that opportunity.

Watch it on a weekend night when you want to be happy. The film delivers. The specific Colin Firth scene is the highlight.