Rye Lane – Q&A with Nathan Bryon and Suzette Llewellyn

Meet Nathan Bryon, writer (with Tom Melia) of Rye Lane

Rye Lane appears to have refreshed the parts other films haven’t reached, to paraphrase the old Heineken advert (badly). The romantic comedy set in Peckham, which premiered at the Sundance Festival earlier this year, received this review from a South London punter on social media:

‘A Wes Anderson style comedy rom com set in south London that made me laugh and warmed my cold empty heart lmao. As a south Londoner it was so nice to see all of these places I frequent almost daily captured so beautifully in a movie.

‘The story line Is just like the kinda story you hear from a mate about their latest escapade. Idk how to explain it but this film felt like home to me in a way no film has ever made me feel. This is coming from someone that generally doesn’t enjoy watching films as they tend to drag on for way longer than needed but I didn’t get that feeling with this. I enjoyed every moment.’

Image above: Vivian Oparah and David Jonsson in Rye Lane

That is possibly the nicest review a film maker could hope to have, and the appreciation from a passing punter has been matched by the paid critics, in America and in the UK:

‘This is a rom-com with heart, wit and style’ – Noel Murray, Los Angeles Times

‘What makes the film relatable is how achingly human it all is’ – Meagan Jordan, Rolling Stone

‘Rye Lane asks you to fall in love with Dom and Yas, but failing that, it will have you hopelessly smitten with its South London setting.’ – Alison Willmore, New York Magazine

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 98% score.

Image above: Tom Melia and Nathan Bryon; Youtube

Here at home, Mark Kermode gave it four stars in The Guardian and said if left audiences with ‘renewed confidence in next-wave British film making.

‘Rye Lane blends the warmth and charm of a formulaic love story with the colourfully street-smart grit of Brit pics such as Shola Amoo’s A Moving Image or more recently Reggie Yates’s Pirates.’

In a particular compliment to writers Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent said it:

‘doesn’t demand two A-listers shoulder the entire job of summoning chemistry from a dead-eyed script’.

The stars are instead up-and-coming actors Vivian Oparah and David Jonsson. This was director Raine Allen-Miller’s debut film and also co-writer Nathan Bryon’s first feature film. Nathan will be talking about the success of Rye Lane with fellow actor Suzette Llewellyn (Surgical Spirit, Doctors, EastEnders) this weekend for the Chiswick In Film festival, after the 7.30pm screening on Saturday 30 September.

Nathan’s other claim to fame is that he once lived in Chiswick (the film’s slightly tenuous connection with Chiswick! Suzette still does). He has always known his passion was for telling stories, he told an audience at the BFI in April, and he is of the opinion that you should try anything – and everything – at least once.

He won the Waterstones 2020 Children’s Book Prize with his debut story book, Look Up!, with illustrator Dapo Adeola; he published a play in 2019 called Dexter and Winter’s Detective Agency and acted the part of Obi in four episodes of the BAFTA nominated TV series Ghosts (2020 – 22). He has also written for television: he wrote and co-created Bloods, a sitcom on Sky Comedy which debuted in 2021.

Images above: Nathan Bryon; Suzette Llewellyn

Success appears to follow him, which cannot be accidental. He has no formal training, but has perfected the art of ‘hustling’, he told the audience at the BFI. He and a friend had made a short film and they had an idea for a cartoon series.

‘We used to try and guess email addresses for producers, and one day, for the first time, our emails didn’t bounce back.

‘Within five minutes, the Head of Warner Brothers’ emailed my friend, inviting him to tour the studios, and a little later, I got a similar invitation from the company behind Rastamouse – a really successful cartoon at the time. Not only did I end up writing for Rastamouse, but the company ended up buying my show idea too.’

The story of Rye Lane starts when two twenty-somethings who are both suffering from bad break-ups happen to meet at the opening of an art exhibition. The script was apparently the product of ‘a drunken 4am trip to KFC’.

Nathan and his co-writer Tom Melia liked classic romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally, but wanted to make a film in which the lead actors were Black and the setting was somewhere that showed ‘the nuanced, colourful aspects of London that aren’t just London Bridge or Big Ben’.

They also wanted the film not to end in tragedy.

‘Black love in film so often ends in tragedy.’

They managed to get funding from BBC Films, The British Film Institute and Searchlight Pictures. Let’s hope it wins some awards.

Come and ask meet Nathan and Suzette on Saturday and talk to them after the 7.30pm screening of Rye Lane.

The Chiswick In Film Festival, which was started in 2022, is a celebration of Chiswick’s connections with the film industry – both as a location for sequences in many films and TV series and as a place where many people working in the industry call home. Suzette Llewellyn and her family are long term residents of Chiswick.

The film festival is a joint collaboration between The Chiswick Calendar and Chiswick Cinema, and Chiswick based film professionals Andrea Carnevali and Rob Sprackling.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar