I LOVE TO WAIT
2019 · 9m · USA
Directed by Harrison Atkins
Genres: comedy, experimental, romance
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, whimsical
Sarah gives Ezra a soul crystal, and that may have been a mistake — a free-roaming vision of an on-and-off relationship in Los Angeles that melds the mundane with the mystical.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A soul crystal handed off between people as a relationship-destroying MacGuffin is exactly the kind of premise that makes me forget every competently mediocre narrative short I've seen this year.
Harrison Atkins treating new-age mysticism with deadpan sincerity — a literal soul crystal in an LA romance — is exactly the formal move that separates this from the Obvious Child / Appropriate Behavior register it nods to. Burdge, Mani, and Thomas is a cast that knows how to play that tone.
A literal soul crystal dropped into an on-and-off LA relationship and treated with deadpan sincerity rather than irony — that tonal commitment is the whole risk. Nine minutes with Sunita Mani is worth a look.
Festivals
- Rooftop Films Summer Series 2019
- International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020
- Maryland Film Festival 2020
- Calgary Underground Film Festival 2020