Waiting On Love

By: Tod Hunter - AVN
In-House Review - May 29 2015

This could be the couples movie of the year. Light, romantic, just enough angst to keep it interesting and none of that infidelity/betrayal stuff that kills a romantic vibe for a couple watching. Waiting on Love is an episodic story woven around a group of women friends and the impending wedding of one of them.

Nikki Daniels and Steven St. Croix just got engaged, and we see them discussing their upcoming wedding with friends at a bar before we follow the two home and watch them celebrate their betrothal by rehearsing for the honeymoon in an unhurried scene with moody lighting and bluesy saxophone music.

In two interleaved scenes, bar waitress Carter Cruise hooks up with bartender Michael Vegas-leading her to tell roommate Karlie Montana she won't be home for dinner, so Montana seizes the opportunity to invite sad neighbor (his wife left him) Chad White over to eat. The Cruise/Vegas scene is lustful and passionate, and when Cruise, still stoked, bounces in after her tryst with a cheerful "Guess what happened?!??" she finds Montana and White sharing a quiet, peaceful supper. White leaves, embarrassed, and as soon as he gets home he checks his answering machine. No new messages. After White's dog runs away-which isn't presented as lamely as it looks here on the page-he is amenable to being comforted by Montana.

The next morning, White has morning-after guilt about his tryst with Montana, the guilt made worse by the recovery of his dog's collar. Cruise is similarly embarrassed by Vegas' bar-wide kiss-and-tell after their set-to. Cruise wants to confront him about his big mouth but he's not available. Just left on vacation. With his girlfriend. Cruise goes home and, finding White on a hammock outside, compassionately walks him inside and tucks him into his bed. The next morning, they trade sad stories over coffee and continue at a picnic lunch, where he tells of the love he still has for his estranged wife who achieved success on Broadway, leaving him behind.

Right before the wedding, Cruise finds that White (her plus-one for the event) has decided to go to New York to see his wife and find out what gives-"But there's one thing I have to do first." And then he walks over and gives Cruise a big, lustful kiss. "What does this mean?" she asks. "I don't know. Let's go." Things get complicated when White's wife turns up at the wedding, and when he gets her alone and asks her, "So what's the plan?" she says she needs to get some new headshots and audition for an upcoming pilot.

Ending is appropriately happy and lustful, with Cruise and White finally, romantically getting together after an hour-ten of missing it by that much.

Stormy Daniels continues to grow and mature as a screenwriter and director, affecting a Sam Fuller-like elliptical style where throwaway offhand comments like "You haven't talked to him in two months since The Freezer Incident" carry impact, even without context. On the tech side, Andre Madness and J. Crew supply stylish videography.