“I’ll Wait for the Next One…” Review
“I’ll Wait for the Next One…”, written in 2002 by Phillippe Orreindy and Thomas Gaudin, is a short film with a rather moving message about the quest for true love. The plot follows a lonely woman who gets on a train and listens to a man give a speech about looking for a romantic partner. He tells anyone who is interested to get off at the next stop, and the woman is so excited and attracted to this proposition that she bolts off the train, only to discover that the man is an actor and the speech was a skit.
The opening scene of the film confused me at first, but it made more sense when I saw the twist in the plot at the end. Here you have this lonely woman walking by herself down a street, and she is accompanied by music that is kind of sad, but also almost too fast-paced to be really sad. Almost as if its hinting at the twist in the end of the film.
It is immediately evident that the woman is lonely. She’s walking by herself and her facial expression is kind of downcast. She stares at the happy couple going up the elevator while she is going down. She stands by herself while waiting for the train, while waiting for the perfect man to come into her life. Then this young man gets on the train, and it seems he is just the man she’s been looking for all her life. While he goes on and on in this speech about his search for love, she smiles, as if relating to him and his failures in love thus far. This is the only time the audience really sees an extreme emotional response from her, as if she is finally alive. The fact that another man calls the first man out on his speech and his quest for love provides a certain contrast between the two that makes the first man seem more genuine and pure, making his speech more believable. Which is good because the man making the love speech lacks a certain conviction, there’s no intense emotion in his eyes or face, not like you would think a man desparate for love would have.
Regardless of the man’s lack of conviction, the audience has really connected with the woman by this point, and everyone is rooting for the happy ending. Which is why the audience feels so devastated when the woman runs off the train and the man doesn’t, revealing the whole sentiment to be a sham. The audience is just as crushed as the woman is, which says a lot about the quality of her portrayal in this film because she didn’t talk once and the yet the audience felt for her so deeply.
This film, especially the distressing ending, makes a powerful statement about the quest for love, and I believe that statement is that you can’t really go looking for love. No one actually gets on a train and invites random strangers to be in love with him. That’s not real. Love can’t be sought after or advertised or contrived. Then its just an act. It has to come naturally. And I think this film did a fantastic job communicating that.
