Middle of Nowhere | Review

Director Ava DuVernay returns with her sophomore feature, Middle of Nowhere, less than a year after her awesome yet terribly unappreciated 2011 debut, I Will Follow, and also a film as equally nuanced about loss and love. As writer and director of both features, DuVernay, a seasoned publicist, has solidified herself as one of the best new directorial voices not only in what’s being cited as a current wave in independent black centered cinema, but in independent American cinema overall. She’s got a knack for not only writing excellent female characters, but casting actresses in them that are criminally underused.

Middle of Nowhere opens with a conversation between Ruby (Corinealdi) and Derek (Hardwicke) during a visiting day in prison. Derek has just been sentenced to an eight year sentence (five for good behavior) and Ruby has decided to drop out of medical school so that she would be able to be at home for his phone calls and near enough to visit every weekend. While he urges her not to make this sacrifice, Ruby is considerably insistent, taking work as a night nurse at a Los Angeles hospital and helping her single-mom sister (Edwina Findley) raise her young boy. Fast forward four years and it looks like Derek may be up for early parole, until an untimely prison fight causes everything to unravel and making Ruby realize she’s been incredibly naïve to trust that her husband tells her everything that goes on behind bars (just as she turned a blind eye to his suspicious criminal activities). With pressure from her sister and her distant but strong-willed mother (Lorraine Toussaint), Ruby begins to explore her options, which includes possible romance with a sweet bus driver (David Oyelowo).

As in I Will Follow, DuVernay centers her story here around a woman who has lost the closest connection to her. Whereas death was the issue in the previous film, here, Ruby’s hope to restore her life and relationship to what it was is a fantasy constantly dangling before her eyes…if only she can struggle to not grow into a different person in five years. The result is a terrifically written and nuanced performance from Emayatzy Corinealdi. Previously working mostly in shorts and television, Corinealdi knocks it out of the park, and each of the supporting cast feels pitch perfect, with special mention to Omari Hardwicke, who was also in DuVernay’s previous film. However, Lorraine Toussaint steals every scene as a bitchy but well-meaning mother, and she dominates her handful of moments. (Someone please cast this woman in more films).