The Bus

Trailer | IMDB | 20 January 2009 | Site

A love story of bikes and one-night stands told through two African-American twenty-somethings dealing with issues of class, identity, and the evolving conundrum of being a minority in rapidly gentrifying San Francisco-a city with the smallest proportional black population of any other major American city.

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I saw this over the past weekend at the local arthouse theater. The best way I can describe it is as a mumblecore film that has an actor you've heard of. The movie attempts to deal with issues beyond the main one-night-stand relationship: mainly race and what it means to live in San Francisco. (The film is actually weirdly punctuated by a 5-minute roundtable scene where activists/community members are talking about gentrification.)

It's a good enough film, but I can see how it could drive away a lot of people, so I would only recommend it if you can watch slower, relationship-driven dramas. Not something to rush out and catch, but worth watching.