The lives of around ten Asian Americans make up the story of Worth the Wait, a Crazy, Stupid, Love-style rom-com about all different types of love in the modern world. It’s a charming, if basic, approach to the genre and will surely fit in amongst Tubi’s wide variety of free-to-stream films.
To All the Boys I’ve Met Before’s Lana Condor and Ross Butler anchor the story of the film. Leah (Condor) and Kai (Butler) quickly hit it off after a quaint meet-cute in a hospital, but because of Kai’s commitment to run his father’s company over in Malaysia, the two begin a long-distance relationship.
Worth the Wait Review
The other stories consist of a couple rekindling their love after a failed pregnancy, a high school boy (Ricky He) trying to convince his crush’s (Ali Fumiko Whitney) strict uncle (Sung Kang) that he’s worthy of his niece’s love, the uncle finding love himself, and a famous director (Elodie Young) who finds herself reunited with her former flame.
It’s a whole lot of romance for one film to handle, and director Tom Lin manages it fairly well. Each of the stories is given enough to stand on its own without feeling too big or too small for the film, while also giving enough room for the main story of Leah and Kai to shine through.
As the film pushes on, we unravel the connections that these seeming strangers have, which adds a level of intrigue that makes it fairly interesting outside of the main plot. It’s certainly better than your average Lifetime rom-com, but not as great as any mainstream rom-com ever is, or even the To All the Boys films are.
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Is it Worth the Wait to make it through a long-distance relationship? Since romance is so frequently portrayed in its regular, short-distance form, it’s interesting to see how it plays out in this film. The struggles of patiently waiting to see your partner add a nice bit of tension to the relationship that doesn’t feel forced or needlessly frustrating.
On a technical level, there’s just nothing keeping this from feeling pretty cheap. It’s shot and lit on a basic level and fails to extract anything beyond a basic cinematic look. Obviously, viewers of this aren’t going to be looking for a visual masterpiece, but it’s things like that that make rom-coms stand out.
The performances, mainly from Condor and Butler, are fairly good. It’s always important for the main couple to have chemistry, and given their years of experience together, these two make it work. Ricky He and Ali Fumiko Whitney are also quite charming and funny in their subplot, which is the best of the separated love stories.
The other subplots are not so great. In particular, the movie director’s one is a jarring plot with unlikable characters and stands out as one that could’ve been cut. The film as a whole feels a little disjointed, probably because of the nature of the ensemble cast. Trimming one subplot or cutting it entirely would’ve made the movie much more cohesive as a whole.
Is Worth the Wait worth watching?
It’s hard to ultimately criticize the movie because it’s not too long, not too dull, and not too basic. The characters are nice enough, and the romance is pretty good. When the stories come together at the end, it’s cute. For people who like rom-coms, this will be difficult to dislike.
Worth the Wait is ultimately worth the watch because of its simplicity. Watching people fall in love is a nice break from the harsh realities of the world. We see many different types of romance explored in the film, and while none are groundbreaking, it’s all done with enough heart to bring a smile to your face.
Worth the Wait is on Tubi now.
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