by Watch: Raine Allen-Miller Talks Rye Lane to Yahoo!
As Rye Lane bursts onto cinema screens this week, director Raine Allen-Miller has challenged other filmmakers.
“It’s time for a new style of romcom,” the filmmaker tells Yahoo UK. And she thinks her south London romantic comedy could be the start.
For them, the genre all too often falls into the trap of being cheesy and formulaic and needs a change. “There are some really great ones out there like Ten Things I Hate About You,” she explained.
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“But there was an era of the really cheesy ones, when the posters showed the actors back-to-back. Why were they always standing back to back?”
She believes that Richard Curtis’ romcoms have had their day and subverts that style right in the film’s opening moments. Rye Lane’s cute meeting takes place in a toilet.
Yas (Vivian Oparah) has retreated there to freshen up and finds Dom (David Jonsson) in a cubicle in tears over his ex. Allen-Miller admits the idea was hers.
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“In the beginning I really liked the idea of having lots and lots of toilets from all over the world, and then it felt really weird to have that in the toilet too,” she explained.
“The other thing is that romantic comedies are often pretty cheesy, and I think if the cute meeting is in a loo, no one can say that’s cheesy. Toilets aren’t cheesy, are they? You will never be cheesy. Can you think of anything cheesy that happens in a loo other than a selfie in the mirror?”
Despite their hopeless start, Yas and Dom meet over the course of a day, wandering the colorful streets of Peckham and finding themselves both overcoming a painful breakup.
The film’s vibrant energy captured hearts at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and screened at both the Glasgow and Manchester Film Festivals ahead of its UK premiere last week in Peckham.
It’s scattered with cheeky nods to other romantic comedies: There’s a burrito bar called Love Guac’tually, where a well-known heartthrob serves Yas and Dom their food.
But although she directed the film, Allen-Miller isn’t a lover of romcoms. “I’m a movie buff,” she says. “I like comedy – comedy with a genre like horror comedy. But romantic comedy is not my genre.”
Then, with a characteristically confident smile, she adds, “But I’m not just going to do romcoms.
Rye Lane is her feature film debut following a successful advertising career. Joining David Jonsson (appeared on last year’s TV series Industry) and Vivian Oparah (appearing on the small screen in Then You Run later this year) are Simon Manyonda, Levi Roots, Benjamin Sarpong-Broni and a host of others to see locals from Peckham.
Rye Lane hits UK cinemas on March 17th. Check out a trailer below.
