“What goes around comes around.” “Karma’s a bitch.” Just a couple of quotes that people bandy about in the hopes of motivating people to treat one another with more kindness and consideration. But is there such a thing as karma? Are people who mistreat others doomed to feel the aftershocks of their own behavior eventually? And if so, can balancing our own karma lead to greater self-fulfillment, no matter what the costs of repaying our debts may entail? The debut film from director Gille Klabin attempts to explore this question.
In The Wave, we meet Frank (Justin Long), an ambitious corporate insurance lawyer who amidst a frustrating home life goes out on the town to celebrate an upcoming promotion with his co-worker, Jeff (Donald Faison). The pair meet two women in a local bar named Natalie (Katia Winter) and Theresa (Sheila Vand) and the new acquaintances head off to a house party to continue the night. But things take a turn for Frank after he is given a mysterious hallucinogen from a mysterious man named Aeolus (Tommy Flanagan) that alters his perception of the world and takes him on a confusing psychedelic quest after he wakes up to find his wallet and Theresa missing and the drug still working hours later. As Frank trips between reality and fantasy, he goes along with Jeff and Natalie to find his wallet, Theresa, and himself.
When we first meet Frank, he appears to lives a joyless life outside of working toward his aspirations and goals as a lawyer. His marriage to his wife Cheryl (Sarah Minnich) seems cold, loveless, and based more on the material things they can acquire while partnered than any caring for one another. The state of Frank’s life works to inform his experience while on his drug trip, spurring him to discover meaning within his life and setting him on the path of developing into the person he truly wants to be at his core. Frank is never truly comfortable working in his capacity as a lawyer to help insurance companies prevent payouts to their clients and in his drug-fueled euphoria, is able to process his guilt and work toward righting this wrong and in doing so, eventually helps to restore karmic balance not only in his own life, but in those he has encountered along the way. In this respect, The Wave is making a statement about how the universe evens things out and gives everyone what they deserve, both good and bad.
In a film about an insane drug trip, having inventive and eye-catching cinematography is paramount. The Wave, Klabin, and its director of photography Aaron Grasso achieves this with aplomb. The film employs extremely inventive camera work to merge sets from one shot to another along with some killer transition shots with all aspects combining to give the film an out of body feel to accompany the plot point of Frank’s hallucinogenic journey. The trips depicted in the film are like psychedelic paintings altering the look of the actors just enough to walk the line between reality and a haze as you’d imagine the hallucinogen would do. The visual effects employed in this low budget indie also punch above their weight class, never feeling cheap or poorly put together. The end result is a film that offers the perfect amount of visual fanaticism to match its source material.
The Wave is an ambitious debut feature for director Gille Klabin and he displays a knack for eye-popping visuals and interesting storytelling. Embarking on a non-linear, time-hopping plot your first go round is quite the risk, but Klabin is able to pull it off without approaching disaster and making it a compelling watch. Justin Long and Donald Faison display an engaging chemistry as Frank and Jeff, calling to mind some of their previous endeavors as actors and reminding viewers of why those efforts were successful in the first place. Long’s depiction of a successful professional undergoing a crisis of conscience is also well-acted and believable, providing the thematic depth that makes this film both funny and interesting. Said theme isn’t as clear as some may prefer and can be slightly subjective, but the exploration of personal fulfillment, guilt, and karmic retribution here is intriguing if muddled for some. The Wave is enjoyable and makes the future of Klabin as a director intriguing as the sound stages he is allowed to play on hopefully become more grand.
Image: Epic Pictures
