Chloë Sevigny in The Wait (Visit Films)

Director M. Blash unites Chloë Sevigny and Jena Malone as bereaved sisters, Emma and Angela, coping with their mother’s passing.  The film opens right after the death, and is immediately followed by a strange phone call to Emma (Sevigny) from a psychic who cryptically alludes to the resurrection of her mother.  In a state of shock and longing, Emma sheds her rational demeanor as she awaits the reanimation of her mother’s corpse, keeping the body shrouded on the bedroom floor.  Jenna Malone upholds the role of the logical, younger Angela, who staunchly disbelieves in the possibility…at first.

As the days pass, Emma refuses to surrender the body to the morgue.  The unusual situation creates a ripe environment for the sprouting of sibling malevolence.  In one early scene, Emma violently forces Angela into an open closet, verbally reprimanding her for attempting to have the body taken away: “Last time, you didn’t listen to me about that fucked up fiancé of yours, and look where that got you!  You haven’t been touched in a year.”

Blash employs a brilliant contrast of visible family traits and the disturbing potential malice within all people.  This dichotomy is reflected in the portrayal of class and setting.  The sisters, clearly in the upper crust of society, are educated, well dressed, and free from work for the summer.  Within the rural hills of Black Butte, Oregon, they enjoy the frivolity of strolling through town to get their hair done, cruising in their late father’s Porsche, and wandering from one palace of modern architecture to the next, visiting neighbors.

Yet despite this lush existence, the siblings are dissolving mentally.  Angela eventually embraces the possibility of her mother’s return after finding a kindred spirit in her neighbor Ben (Luke Grimes).  Emma continues to regress into a childlike state, dancing to songs from her teenage years and donning her high school wardrobe.  Their youngest brother, Ian (Devon Gearhart), is all the while traversing the path of sexual awakening.  All of this is set in a town being threatened by forest fires, which provide the viewer with a constant sense of ominous foreshadowing, though perhaps one that doesn’t deliver the expected result.

The Wait is a film that captures the aura of uncertainty.  It delivers a tone similar to the films of Lars von Trier, as if the sky could open and rain locust on us all.  Though the events throughout are all possible, the scenes are delivered with a placid strangeness that mimics so accurately the surreal weight of grief.  Such eeriness is conveyed by the close-ups of crackling fire as well as the depiction of the mother’s corpse.  The characters, along with audience, begin to believe anything is possible, yet the images coax this reaction rather than coerce it.  While death and fire are physically threatening opponents, the film emphasizes their psychological consequences: terror, grief, and even madness.

This is beautifully shot.  The bold brush of the Northwest being burned by angry flames as well as Blash’s washed-out portraits of Sevigny and Malone are at once painterly and unsettling.  I can say nothing less of the acting, as one would expect from the cast. The performances are subtle and impactful.  I expect to see some great work from Blash in the future, until then, The Wait will do.