Medicine for Melancholy

Medicine for Melancholy

2008. USA. Written and directed by Barry Jenkins. With Wyatt Cenac, Tracey Heggins, Elizabeth Acker. Elegant, thoughtful, and moving, Barry Jenkins’s Medicine for Melancholy is a beautifully shot (by James Laxdun) two-hander starring Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show) and Tracey Heggins as possible lovers mapping their lives on the economically stratified neighborhoods of San Francisco. When so many films use location as scenic backdrop, Medicine for Melancholy never presupposes that the romantic possibilities of its two illicit lovers are more important than the social reality in which Jenkins quite deftly embeds them. Medicine for Melancholy was the cover of Filmmaker’s Winter 2009 issue. 88 min.