Medicine for Melancholy is one of those feature debuts that equally hints at the filmmaker’s influences and the idiosyncratic direction they will eventually head on their own. In tracing the awkward morning (and day) after a one-night stand between Micah and Jo (Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins), writer-director Barry Jenkins evidences a lyricism that’s reminiscent of Wong Kar-wai and Richard Linklater in Before mode, while he and cinematographer James Laxton’s own flourishes—including a black-and-white visual scheme that allows for slowly seeping color here and there—point to the persistence of beauty, even amidst disappointment, that would become a recurring theme in the likes of Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk.
(11/1/2021)
