General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Middle of Nowhere (2012 film)

Middle of Nowhere is a 2012 American drama film written and directed by Ava DuVernay, her second feature, about a Los Angeles nurse whose life is upended while her husband serves an eight-year prison sentence.¹^•² It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2012, where DuVernay won the U.S. Directing Award: Dramatic, and opened in limited theatrical release in the United States on October 12, 2012.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Director and writer	Ava DuVernay, her second feature after I Will Follow (2011)⁵
Sundance honor	U.S. Directing Award: Dramatic, 2012 Sundance Film Festival; DuVernay became the first African American woman to win the festival's best director award⁴^•⁶
Lead cast	Emayatzy Corinealdi (Ruby), Omari Hardwick (Derek), David Oyelowo (Brian), Lorraine Toussaint (Ruth)⁷
Release	Sundance premiere January 20, 2012; U.S. limited release October 12, 2012³
Later awards	2013 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award; 2013 Black Reel Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay¹
Key crew	Cinematographer Bradford Young, editor Spencer Averick, composer Kathryn Bostic⁷
Reception	88% Tomatometer from 51 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes; U.S. gross of $166.9K⁸

Spoilers

Plot and characters

Ruby (Emayatzy Corinealdi) was a medical student married to Derek (Omari Hardwick) when he was sentenced to eight years in prison. She drops out of school to devote herself to his life and morale, making four-hour round trips by bus to the federal prison in Victorville, California, on visiting days.⁵^•⁹ The film opens with a prison visit in which Ruby vows to be there for him when his sentence ends, hoping for the possibility of early release.⁶

The film is deliberately vague at first about why Derek is incarcerated, and the reasons are never fully explained; the focus stays on the couple's relationship rather than the crime.⁵^•⁹ Through a chance encounter with Brian (David Oyelowo), a hard-working bus driver, and a betrayal that shakes her to the core, Ruby is pushed toward a journey of self-discovery in which she weighs how much self-sacrifice her marriage can demand before it damages her identity.¹^•¹⁰ Her mother Ruth (Lorraine Toussaint) sharply criticizes her decision to abandon her studies, and her sister Rosie is played by Edwina Findley; Sharon Lawrence appears as Alberta Fraine.⁵^•⁷

Production

DuVernay has said that Middle of Nowhere was the first film she ever wrote; she set the script aside because she did not yet know how to make it, and financed it by rolling over money earned by I Will Follow, using equipment belonging to a landlord who ran a commercial production company downstairs from her and became a producer on the film.¹¹ In that interview she put the budget at $250,000, crediting cinematographer Bradford Young with making the money look like more; a separate listing gives a budget of $2 million.¹¹^•¹²

In developing the story, DuVernay said she interviewed more than 100 women in Ruby's situation to understand the complicated sacrifices they make.¹⁰ She filmed in South-Central Los Angeles, including a week on East 91st Street, saying she wanted to set the production in the community without waving her hand and saying, "Hey we're in the hood."¹³

The film was produced by Howard Barish, DuVernay, and Paul Garnes through Kandoo Films and Forward Movement, with Bradford Young as director of photography, Spencer Averick as editor, and Kathryn Bostic composing the music.⁷ Rotten Tomatoes lists the distributor as AFFRM, the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement that DuVernay founded to support and distribute Black independent films, while the AFI Catalog records Participant Media as the distribution company.⁸^•⁷^•⁵

Release and reception

After its January 20, 2012 Sundance premiere, the film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2012 and opened in limited U.S. release on October 12, 2012.³ At Sundance it won the U.S. Directing Award: Dramatic, presented to DuVernay as director and screenwriter; press coverage noted she was the first African American woman to win the festival's best director award.⁴^•⁶ The film later won the 2013 Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award and Black Reel Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay.¹

Critics responded strongly. Rotten Tomatoes records an 88% Tomatometer from 51 reviews, with a critics consensus calling the film "wise, compassionate, and beautifully acted" and an early testament to DuVernay's startling talent.⁸ Kenneth Turan, film critic of the Los Angeles Times, wrote that it was uncommon to see serious adult dramas so moving and accomplished, and praised the ensemble casting by Aisha Coley and Corinealdi's performance in particular.⁹ Roger Ebert, longtime film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times and winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for criticism, called Corinealdi's turn a star-making performance and noted that most of the film's action takes place within the mind of a lonely woman.⁵ The film grossed $166.9K in U.S. theaters.⁸

Place in DuVernay's career

Middle of Nowhere is the middle film of DuVernay's early independent run, between I Will Follow (2011) and Selma (2014). Meeting David Oyelowo on this film led, she has said, eventually to Selma, in which he played Martin Luther King Jr.¹⁴ The film also established themes she returned to: her documentary 13th examines mass incarceration, and her series Queen Sugar features a character recently released from prison.¹⁵ The film's world television premiere came on BET on July 23, 2014, and it later streamed on Netflix at several intervals between 2015 and 2025.¹⁶^•¹²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026