In the reflective and contemplative indie drama Waiting for the Light to Change, five twenty-somethings meet for a long weekend at a secluded lakeside vacation rental – decidedly off-season. Two of the women, Amy (Jin Park) and Kim (Joyce Ma), were originally very close friends, but their lives (jobs in different cities and Kim’s new boyfriend) have moved them apart in recent years.
The three other friends (Sam Straley, Erik Barrientos, Qun Chi) impact the story, but mainly to reflect what is going on between Amy and Kim. I very much appreciated this fresh dynamic in the screenplay – Amy has recently lost a lot of weight and consequently is now much more attractive to men that she has previously been during her friendship with Kim.
The film was shot near Port Austin where Michigan’s Thumb juts into Lake Huron. There’s a boathouse, a dock, some woods to hike in and not much to do when the weather is bleak and chilly. The five, mostly in combinations of two, take measure of their lives, and they already have a lot of regrets for people so young. Waiting for the Light to Change has been pitched as an Asian-American The Big Chill, but the talky tone is more like Whit Stilman’s early films (albeit not about preppy slackers with inherited wealth).
As Amy and Kim probe and spar, and we wait to see how and whether their relationship will survive, Waiting for the Light to Change is a slow, slow burn. So slow that, twice, I thought that I had accidently paused the screener.
Waiting for the Light to Change is the directing debut for Linh Tran, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Tran shows a gift for framing shots, and the audience can’t tell that the film was made for just $20,000.
Waiting for the Light to Change won Slamdance’s Narrative Feature Grand Jury prize.
