Rating: R | Runtime: 97 minutes
Release Date: May 31st, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Republic Pictures
Director(s): Tayarisha Poe
Writer(s): Tayarisha Poe

You think I’m pressed about forever? Love me now.

I’ll let writer/director Tayarisha Poe describe The Young Wife in her own words because I don’t think any others could hit the nail on the head like these two sentences: “It’s a sunny day panic attack, a Lisa Frank lucid dream. An expression of future nostalgia.”

If I was being reductive, I’d call it Melancholia by way of Shiva Baby because it’s an intense, dense depiction of independence, love, anxiety, and longing. It’s friends and family suffocating Celestina (Kiersey Clemons) in equal measure to helping her breathe. It’s a party (not a wedding) where guests bring gifts despite being told not to. Where secrets are revealed and judged. Choices bolstered by confidence and shattered by uncertainty. Is this really what Celestina wants? Is it what she needs? Is it simply to help make the noise stop?

I love that “Lisa Frank lucid dream” line because the whole does feel very trippy in its not-quite-sci-fi but not-quite-lo-fi aesthetic with tube tvs and cellphones, apocalyptic weather and hypnotic meditation trances (led by Poe’s Selah and the Spades star Lovie Simone) every hour on the hour. Celestina’s soon-to-be grandmother-in-law Cookie (Judith Light) has an oxygen tank built around a Peruvian flower that breathes out the element into her lungs. It’s all just left-of-center to ramp up the uneasy atmosphere threatening to consume its bride whole.

Because who is Celestina in all of this? Is she the focal point? Doesn’t seem like it considering all anyone wants to talk about is River (Leon Bridges) and how being his wife will either be the greatest thing since sliced bread or a curse that destroys her very identity—there is zero middle ground except from Cookie, being she’s on the other end of having experienced the highs and lows of embodying labels to her benefit and frustration. Is this a mistake? Has Celestina simply agreed to a new “job” that cements the “duties” she’s already been shouldering with a fresh air of necessity rather than desire?

Celestina is pushed and pulled through the room as River’s loquacious sisters project themselves upon her image, her childhood friends (led by Aida Osman’s Sabrina) question her every decision, and her mother (Sheryl Lee Ralph) judges the whole ordeal. River’s mother (Michaela Watkins) keeps him away to complete her to-do list. Celestina’s co-worker (Jon Rudnitsky) adds to the chores she’s already being forced to complete since no one wants to actually listen to her. And the world seems to be sabotaging every attempt at calm via brilliant prop use (the phones are a delight) and eerie cuts between the cacophony of reality and the silence of her mind.

It’s an exhilarating experience that presents the tug-of-war we all must endure to maintain a level of self within the communal “us” that’s born from the relationships we cultivate either through routine (family), choice (friends), necessity (career), or love (spouse). Clemons is fantastic, weaving in and out of the chaos to stand-up for herself despite the walls closing in. She’s looking into the potential mirrors of sisterhood, parenthood, and marriage, finding her place within those traditional conventions while refusing to let herself get trapped. Celestina does want this, but the “this” on her terms. The “this” of today without the expectations of tomorrow. Because tomorrow is no longer guaranteed.

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(L-R) Leon Bridges and Kiersey Clemons in THE YOUNG WIFE; courtesy of Republic Pictures (a Paramount Pictures label) release.