Thursday, February 13, 2025

Movie Review: ‘The Young Wife’ is Profoundly Moving


Director: Tayarisha Poe
Writer: Tayarisha Poe
Stars: Leon Bridges, Aya Cash, Kiersey Clemons

Synopsis: It follows a young woman grappling with the meaning of love and commitment, follow her over her non wedding day.


The Young Wife’s writer and director, Tayarisha Poe, is a filmmaker with a singular and unique vision so distinct that there is nothing like her films out there. Her movies are obsessive about language, filling her script with witty and intense dialogue that is sharp. They sting or touch you in a way that most filmmakers can only dream of. As you get caught up in her words and stunning visuals, you begin to fall under the grip of a filmmaker who wields her camera frame with the intent of affecting her audience in a way that sneaks up on you that is holistic and honest.

As a case in point, a breathtaking scene in The Young Wife moved me in a way a film has not done so in quite some time. All with a single piece of dialogue, Poe has the character of Sabrina (a scene-stealing Aida Osman) tell her friend, lovingly and dripping with empathy, how it is a “privilege that others are affected by you.” The scene is beautiful, even lyrical, in a way only achievable when writing, acting, and atmosphere achieve a certain harmony. 

It’s this quality that always keeps The Young Wife present and in the moment for the audience.

The story follows Celestina (Heart Beats Loud’s Kiersey Clemons), a young woman in her late twenties who is about to get married. Yet, Celestina is doing everything she can to tell friends and family it’s a “non-wedding.” She is engaged to River (a terrific Leon Bridges), and Celestina is keeping a secret–she has just quit her job but hasn’t told him. The only person Celestina has told is her mother (Sheryl Lee Ralph), who is less than thrilled with her daughter giving up her high-paying gig when her fiancé doesn’t have the means to support them.

That leads to some delightful and thought-provoking scenes about individuality and conformity. The script takes that theme with the ability to weave together an eclectic group of characters that are so different they can be placed in their specific genres (and arguably even a few tropes). Many will complain about this being unattainable whimsy, but this is not the point. Celestina is surrounded by unique individuals who stand out among the crowd, and she’s afraid of blending into it. When she marries River, Celestina seems to be asking herself if she will lose her sense of self. Will she only be known as River’s wife? 

In one of the film’s best scenes with Clemons’s former Transparent co-star, Judith Light, who plays River’s grandmother, she tells Celestina how a man can break you down into little pieces, “Let your husband choke to keep yourself whole.”

It has been interesting to see how artists, particularly actors and directors, have been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic by looking at their films before and after. In the case of The Young Wife’s director, Poe’s debut film was the 2020 Juvenalian satire Selah and the Spades, which had some of the sharpest commentary about the social justice political climate in recent memory. However, in The Young Wife, the lines of social justice commentary are erased, and you have a lovely eclectic mix of all backgrounds bonded through love and friendship. 

The story is set in a futuristic background where climate change is rapidly causing rain and forest fires, and the world has begun to embrace the burden of alleviating mental health globally. (Be looking for a Lovie Simone cameo in a recurring scene called “The Meditation Minute.”) Celestina is a woman who is consumed by her anxiety about her future while experiencing depression about her past. Her character is never mindful or in the moment but experiencing what most of us have had during and now (yes, it’s still going on). 

The scenes with her friends are chaotic because they are present. The scenes on the news of impending doom are present, causing Celestina to look past them as a defense mechanism to ignore the present. What Poe has created here is a controlled chaos constantly in motion and revolving around Celestina. When you break it down, the tone and feel of Poe’s The Young Wife is akin to the first act of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. As the film progresses, the looming sense of a world’s rotting at its core becomes more prevalent and brought to the forefront. This plot point mirrors the reason for Celestina’s internal turmoil that she cannot seem to bring under control. 

However, all Poe accomplishes here is possible because of Clemons’s best career performance. That’s because the young actress begins to realistically depict the twenty-something sense of existential dread against the backdrop of extraordinary circumstances. Clemons can show great strength and vulnerability in a single glance as her characters slowly come apart at the seams and are repaired by the ones she loves around her. This comes back to the “privilege that others are affected by you.”


The Young Wife is a metaphor for a new world, still seen through a feminist lens that reveals the more things change, the more they stay the same. While many may stick their nose up at the film’s idiosyncratic composition and claim there is a purple prose to its subtext, the final act of Tayarisha Poe’s film becomes profound. One that causes the audience to have a visceral reaction to the chaos happening all around us.

Grade: A-

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