WAITING FOR THE LIGHT (1990) *** This is one of those films that could have so easily gone wrong, could have so easily lapsed into mean-hearted mockery of the faithful awaiting a sign, could have assumed that all the JFK/Cuban missile crisis footage would set the tone for the era all by itself, could have forgotten the simple things like that an abandoned diner looks like heaven to kids, could have set Teri Garr up with the wrong guy, could have insisted that bad kids are bad or that it's ok to be bad even if there's nothing funny or edifying or at least challenging about it. Instead it's simple but tasteful, at once relaxing and challenging and reassuring and witty. Shirley MacLaine is fabulous, I think all that smoke and mirrors must be something that she did in a past life, and the philosophical challenging is clearly what she does in this one. And who's to say that these fictitious events aren't actually what resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis from another dimension? That's just one of the reasons that one should watch what they write. Good opening day gambit for your foundations class on what constitutes a miracle.
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