At
least the psychic never asks for money.
Maybe that is why Emma believes her. It must be admitted her timing is
also spot-on, given she calls unsolicited immediately after the death of Emma’s
mother. Much to her sister’s frustration, Emma insists it will only be a matter
of time before their mother returns to the land of the living, because a
stranger told her so in M. Blash’s supernatural-ish drama The Wait (trailer
here), which
opens this Friday in New York.
Presumably,
Angela is the more responsible sister since she does all the things you are
supposed to do when a family member dies.
Her older sister is clearly a flake, yet everyone seems to defer to
her. Instead of grieving, the family
just ambles about in a daze, with the air conditioning cranked up to arctic
levels. Angela recognizes cracked behavior when she sees it, but her flirtation
with a scruffy hipster neighbor distracts her from pushing the issue.
Blash
plays up the verdant eeriness of the Pacific Northwest woods for all its worth,
simulating the vibe of Twin Peaks,
but lacking the distinctive characters and stuff happening with
regularity. Kasper Tuxen’s lush cinematography
evokes a sense something uncanny must be going on somewhere, but there are
simply too many shots of characters staring off into the distance for Wait to sustain any appreciable
momentum.
After
Tuxen, Jena Malone is probably the film’s MVP. As Angela, she actually supplies
a real performance, marked by vulnerability and sensuality. In contrast, Chloë Sevigny’s Emma largely
fades into the background, which is surprisingly given the lively impression
she made in Jonathan Caouette’s even more surreal short, All Flowers in Time.
