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Medicine for Melancholy

Medicine for Melancholy

Drama · Romance · 2009

Waking from a one-night stand that neither remembers, Micah and Joanne find themselves wandering the streets of San Francisco, sharing coffee and conversation and searching for a deeper connection.

Movie details

Medicine for Melancholy

2009 Drama · Romance 1h 28m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.6 / 10

2.7K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

85 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

62 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.1 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Waking from a one-night stand that neither remembers, Micah and Joanne find themselves wandering the streets of San Francisco, sharing coffee and conversation and searching for a deeper connection.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Medicine for Melancholy?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Drama · 1954

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Barry Jenkins

Written by

Barry Jenkins

Wyatt Cenac

Wyatt Cenac

Micah

Tracey Heggins

Tracey Heggins

Jo

E

Elizabeth Acker

Housing Rights Committee Member

Melissa Bisagni

Melissa Bisagni

Cassandra Jay

DeMorge Brown

DeMorge Brown

MOAD (voice)

P

Powell DeGrange

Housing Rights Committee Member

C

Chida Emeka

Housing Rights Committee Member

Court is in session

Put Medicine for Melancholy on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.