LOVELY JUBBLY (RYE LANE)

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Picture

It's very difficult to make a decent romcom.

All too often they fall easily into the same stale old formula.

And inevitably, they wither on the vine when measured against the very best of the genre.

So hats off to Raine Allen-Miller who has managed to breathe new life into the romcom by setting hers in... Peckham?

Yes, Peckham.

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Pictures

Decommission your prejudices about Peckham, though, because it is not the rough south east London district portrayed in the popular 1980s and 90s BBC sitcom 'Only Fools and Horses'.

These days it's a vibrant, multi-ethnic community famed for its vibrant arts sector.

The New York Times recently described it as "the beating heart of London's most dynamic art scene".

'Rye Lane,' Allen-Miller's 82 minute BBC, BFI and Searchlight Pictures romcom surfs this cultural wave, giving Peckham a whole new set of characters to shout about beyond the Trotters.

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Pictures

Featuring a largely unknown cast, David Jonsson plays Dom, a twentysomething, recently qualified accountant who lives at home with his parents and is grieving after the collapse of a long term relationship.

'Rye Lane' begins its tale with an overhead tracking shot that peeks down on the occupants of various toilet cubicles before eventually settling on Dom as he weeps on the loo watching a TikTok.

We later learn his relationship fell apart when he discovered his ex, Karene Peter's Gia was cheating on him with his best mate, Benjamin Sarpong-Broni's Eric.

While Dom, who is an introvert, sits on the toilet mourning a relationship that has died, Vivian Oparah's more outgoing Yas lands in the bathroom and hears him sobbing.

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Pictures

Checking he's okay, she spies his bubblegum pink Converse shoes after peeking under the cubicle door but is given the brush off by him.

When Dom emerges from the bathroom to attend his friend, Simon Manyonda's Nathan's photographic exhibition, Yas recognises the pink Converse shoes and strikes up a conversation.

 

Before long, she has talked Dom into buying one of Nathan's pretentious exhibits and soon they are also pounding the streets of Peckham Rye and Brixton, teasing out each others' back stories.

Dom gives her the full story on how he found out about Gia and Eric.

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Pictures

Yas, a designer with dreams of working in film and television, reveals she was previously in a relationship with Malcolm Atobrah's artist Jules.

She explains she realised Jules wasn't the right guy when he refused to wave at tourists passing by on Thames cruises.

Dom is bowled over, however, when Yas pretends to be his girlfriend during an awkward lunch with Gia and Eric who want him to absolve them of their guilt.

He reciprocates her gesture by taking it upon himself to help Yas recover her beloved A Tribe Called Quest album from Jules' apartment.

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Pictures

What develops is a movie which gives the romcom a new streetwise twist by revelling in the sights, sounds and smells of south east London.

Fusing the verbal ping pong of Richard Linklater's 'Before' trilogy with Richard Curtis' love letters to London like 'Notting Hill' and 'Love Actually', Allen-Miller and her screenwriters Nathan Byron and Tom Melia bring a youthful exuberance to the genre.

There's something delightfully subversive about having the golden couple's meet cute in a public toilet.

The steeping of their romcom in Afro-Caribbean and London hip hop culture also lands really well, with Jonsson and Oparah making an engaging couple.

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Pictures

Byron and Melia demonstrate they have a finely tuned instinct for a witty one liner - at one point Nathan is heard telling a guest at an exhibition of photographs of people's mouths that "the mouth is the Stonehenge of the face".

They also have a nose for a good audio gag, with Dom cringing with embarrassment at a house party when his phone is raided by guests looking for music to play.

This sequence is topped off with a gag where Dom is caught rummaging through a drawer of middle aged women's underwear, looking for a key to Jules' house.

Cinematographer Olan Collardy brings a visual vibrancy to proceedings - probably overdosing on the use of wide angle and fisheye lenses but using his filters to great effect.

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Pictures

The film also boasts some really enjoyable supporting performances from the likes of Peter, Sarpong-Broni, Manyondah, Atobrah, Llewella Gideon as Nathan's mum Tanice, Gary Beadle as her house party guest Trevor, Levi Roots as Uncle and Poppy Allen Quarmby as Yas' good friend and Nathan's agent Cass.

But it mostly stands or falls on the charisma of its two leads who rise to the occasion.

Of the two, Oparah probably steals the show - even when confronted by a serious British acting A Lister in a cameo in a Mexican takeaway in Brixton Market.

Oparah and Jonsson give us a memorable karaoke version too of Salt N'Pepa's 'Shoop'.

© BBC Film , BFI & Searchlight Pictures

And if the rendition by another character of Terence Trent d'Arby's 'Sign Your Name' at the party doesn't get you chuckling, then you really don't have a soul.

'Rye Lane' revitalises the romcom, just when you think it has been flogged to death.

If there is any justice, this heartwarming comedy will be a huge indie hit and will turn Peckham into London's neighbourhood of romance.

('Rye Lane' opened in the Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast and other UK and Irish cinemas on March 17, 2023)