| Worth the Wait is a multi-relationship dramedy with intertwining stories. All of the main characters are Asian-American with relationship problems. It’s great representation as there are no stereotypes to be found. There are also no interesting characters to be found, and to make it worse, the better actors have awful characters including some typecasting. The film also struggles with juggling between comedy and drama – attempts at silly comedy back-to-back with grief-stricken scenes of tragedy. Relationship dramedies are not supposed to be this hard to watch. | | 2025
Directed by: Tom Lin
Screenplay by: Maggie Hartmans, Dan Mark, Rachel Tan
Starring: Lana Condor, Ross Butler
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Our opening (and arguably main) couple are Kai (Ross Butler), a Malaysian business man on a short trip to the US where he randomly ends up in an ER and instantly falls madly in love with Leah (Lana Condor). The problem is of course that he goes back to Malaysia and this brand new couple are in a long-distance relationship. Lana Condor is the most famous of the cast, but just reprises a worse version of her love-obsessed character from To All the Boys franchise. She is manic and obsessive and manufactures the same problems with Kai over and over again, and it becomes impossible to believe this person has the maturity to be a doctor. But I’m also not convinced the writers know what a doctor is because they have her change from an ER doctor to a maternity ward doctor to a nurse.
The next set of characters include young teenage love between a stupid boy and a girl with a strict uncle; a married couple navigating pregnancy and loss; and finally a movie starlet frequently in the headlines for her romantic affairs suddenly finds that her ex-boyfriend is her new director.
The film does a great job with all of the intertwining moments, all of the characters fit into each other’s worlds so well that nothing was forced and the overlapping among all the storylines had a number of fun moments. The problems stem from the fact that none of the characters are particularly interesting. Lana Condor’s Leah is so extreme that she becomes irritating, the strict uncle is constantly grouchy and doesn’t do anything to add an extra layer to that, and the movie star is so bland that they have to remind you every single time that she’s a movie star, otherwise you would forget.
All of the gravitas is supposed to come courtesy of the married couple navigating a lost pregnancy but it just doesn’t work to include one couple dealing in extreme tragedy while all the other couples have trivial relationship issues. The comedy can’t come across when it’s right next to unimaginable grief. The result is a tonally-wrong dramedy about boring relationships.
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