Northwest Film Forum

The director, Barry Jenkins, and both stars, Wyatt Cenac from The Daily Show, and Tracey Heggins are available for phone interviews.
 

Medicine for Melancholy is a love story of bikes and one-night stands told through two African-American twenty-somethings dealing with issues of class, identity, and the evolving conundrum of being a minority in rapidly gentrifying San Francisco -- a city with the smallest proportional black population of any other major American city.

Barry Jenkins' debut feature begins one morning in San Francisco, in the comically awkward aftermath of a one-night stand between two African-American twenty-somethings (The Daily Show’s Wyatt Cenac and newcomer Tracey Heggins). After a sobering cup of coffee, they part, but within hours, the guy contrives to track the girl down. His ingenuity and charm pay off when he convinces her to spend the rest of the day with him. As they walk the city streets, visiting some of its cultural landmarks, they learn more about each other, discussing their circumstances and their differing attitudes towards issues of class and identity while living in a city that, as a consequence of its gentrification, has seen its black population dwindle. This is American independent cinema at its finest, and Jenkins has emerged as a talent worthy of celebration.

"Visually more sophisticated than the bulk of features to yet come out of the new wave of DIY independent American cinema, narratively smoother and yet still boundless in mold-breaking ambition, Medicine for Melancholy offers a self-contained rebuttal to claims that precious, naturalistic dramas about the existential dilemmas of hipster singles are exclusively a white man’s game.” —Karina Longworth, Spout