Medicine for Melancholy also shows how foreign films from Jean-Luc Godard and Wong Kar-Wai and indie movies from Richard Linklater have really influenced Jenkins’ style in later films.

| Jun 20, 2023

Much like Moonlight, Jenkins explores human beings who struggle with preconceived ideas of identity that are thrust upon them.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 5, 2022

...equally hints at Jenkins' influences and the idiosyncratic direction he will eventually head on his own.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 1, 2021

A modern love story that's not really a love story, a love poem to chance encounters and lives that intersect, no matter how briefly, to impact another in unexpected ways.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 7, 2019

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

The actors are effortlessly engaging.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 10, 2009

This is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. But there's really not enough here to remain memorable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 23, 2009

[A] funny, lovely movie.

| Mar 13, 2009

Writer-director Barry Jenkins demonstrates a rare ability to communicate a state of mind through images.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 6, 2009

It's pretty in all the wrong ways: pretty slight, pretty preachy and pretty affected.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 6, 2009

A shoegazing arthouse romance marked by naturalistic performances and a commitment to the beauty, tenderness and on-tenterhooks hope of everyday reality...

| Original Score: B | Mar 2, 2009

It's an unassuming little piffle that wafts away while you're watching it.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 24, 2009

Medicine for Melancholy reminds that much is possible with little.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2009

A hazy, nuanced and remarkably assured debut from filmmaker Barry Jenkins.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 19, 2009

Smart, funny, and visually gorgeous, with the intimacy of a relationship drama and the resonance of a city portrait.

| Feb 2, 2009

A genuinely heartwarming, tender and wise slice-of-life that makes for a terrific, engrossing and refreshingly unpretentious date movie.

| Original Score: 9.5/10 | Jan 31, 2009

Nothing momentous happens -- nor do we expect it to -- but it is fun watching the two 20-somethings playing off each other.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 30, 2009

Cenac is witty and Heggins has a wary stillness, but the movie itself seems too shy to let them really engage each other.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 30, 2009

The film weaves an intriguing commentary on race, class and personal identity, but the trick of minimalism is to hide ideas inside sparse scenes, and Jenkins is too often balancing over-stuffed conversations with undernourished carousel rides.

| Original Score: 72/100 | Jan 30, 2009

Two African-Americans together in San Francisco for a weekend trying to take a one-night stand to a more intimate level.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 30, 2009