The romcom effect

The likable new release Rye Lane bills itself as ‘a love letter to south London’. But, like Amélie in Montmartre, could it end up damaging the place it sets out to celebrate?

- Steve Rose

IT’S ALWAYS FUN TO SEE AN AREA you know in a movie, so as I am a Peckham local, the new romcom Rye Lane is literally up my street. It is named after the main thoroughfare of our south London neighbourhood, which is in the early stages of gentrification. African groceries and pound shops jostle up against new cocktail bars and art galleries. Go back 20 years and all Peckham was known for was working-class wheeler-dealing – largely thanks to a popular 80s sitcom, Only Fools and Horses – and violent crime. Even our MP, Harriet Harman , wore a stab vest when she visited in 2008. Today, Peckham is a hip, popular destination, described by the New York Times as “the beating heart of London’s most dynamic art scene”. And now we’ve got our own romcom, too.

Rye Lane the movie is a very likable variation on a very familiar formula, making Rye Lane the place look somehow better and brighter on screen than in real life. Everything pops with colour as if it’s had a new coat of paint. There’s an absence of homeless people, drunk people, noisy schoolkids, traffic jams. Instead, there are quirky characters, like a grey-haired rhinestone cowboy who body-pops surreally across Rye Lane market as our lovestruck couple ( David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah ) stroll through it. When I walked through the same market the other day, the local colour took the form of a shouting match between rival stallholders.