‘THE WAVE’ IS NO WASHOUT
Smash together bits of Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and an episode of the old TV show “Scrubs” — all with the budget of a school lunch — and you might get “The Wave,” an appealingly ambitious debut feature from director Gille Klabin.
Justin Long is Frank, an LA attorney for a firm that specializes in insurance fraud and bankruptcy who saves the company a small fortune when he uncovers what he believes to be a major discrepancy. Up to his neck in debt and trapped in a loveless, suburban marriage, this bit of good fortune is the one thing in his life that appears to be going right.
So when workplace pal Jeff (Donald Faison, “Ray Donovan”) goads him into celebrating by going out to a dive bar in the heart of the city, Frank at first demurs (“It’s Tuesday”) but then agrees. They meet two women, Natalie (Katia Winter, “Sleepy Hollow”) and Theresa (Sheila Vand, “Undone”), and it’s obvious that the path these guys are going down is not leading to anywhere good. Theresa prods Frank over how corporate and uptight he is, something he is desperate to disprove by going along with them to a drug-fueled party.
Frank wakes up the next morning in an empty party pad with no recollection of what happened — but his wallet’s gone, his phone is out of juice and he has an important meet ing in a few minutes. He not only has to piece together the night before but he has developed this annoying habit of suddenly lurching forward in time and to alternate realities. Like a character in “Slaughterhouse Five,” he seems to have become “unstuck in time.”
Long and Faison have an easy, semi-comedic chemistry — reminiscent of Faison’s riffs with Zach Braff in “Scrubs” — and Klabin, working from a script by Carl W. Lucas, displays a sense of visual flair that bodes well for his future projects.
“The Wave” doesn’t always work in logic or execution, but it’s clever and breezy enough — clocking in at under 90 minutes — that it never wears out its welcome.
DONALD FAISON, LEFT, AND JUSTIN LONG STAR IN “THE WAVE.”