A heartfelt if uneven story of letting go and misdirected emotional energy, Paul Shoulberg’s Ms. White Light imagines a young woman who has no social skills whatsoever unless the person she’s talking to is at death’s door. With the dying, she’s a savant. It’s a role well suited to star Roberta Colindrez, who on small screens (Vida, I Love Dick) has stood out with hard-to-pigeonhole charisma, but that’s not to say the film completely sells its conceit or escapes its maker’s origins in the theater. A near-miss that should find some appreciative viewers, it feels like a stage play in need of a little polishing, whose talented cast likes it enough to commit fully.

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Colindrez plays Lex, a partner with father Gary (John Ortiz) in Cordova & Cordova, Mortality Solutions: The idea is that families who aren’t emotionally equipped (or who just don’t care enough) to deal with terminally ill loved ones can hire her, and she’ll come sit beside a hospital bed, calmly sussing out the individual character of the patient’s fears about dying and helping soothe them. But as soon as the patient flatlines, she’s a mess — so incapable of soothing the surviving family members that she keeps cheap platitudes on index cards in her pocket.

The Bottom LineA stagey look at the final exit.

Release date: Oct 06, 2020

Dressed in a baggy brown man’s suit that was evidently a two-for-one deal with the one her dad wears, Lex seems to give as little thought to her inner state as to her appearance. And despite Gary’s attempts to market her skills, the business is similarly lifeless. Then Nora (Carson Meyer), a teenager who miraculously recovered after receiving Lex’s ministrations, swoops into the office determined to turn things around. Sporting an unlikely fascination with bushido, the ancient ethical code of samurai behavior, she claims to owe a debt that will only be repaid when she saves Lex’s life. To say the least, Lex is uncomfortable with her new helper.

Her discomfort increases when she gets a client unlike the others. Cancer patient Val (Judith Light) doesn’t seem terrified of shuffling off this plane. She’s mostly lonely, and has hired a variety of surrogate friends to fill her final days — including Spencer (Zachary Spicer, from Shoulberg’s directing debut The Good Catholic), a smarmy charlatan whose claims to commune with the spirit world don’t have to be convincing to satisfy Val’s needs. Lex and Spencer cross paths frequently in the hospital, but while they’re obviously being set up for a romance, neither the writing nor chemistry between the actors makes such a connection plausible, or desirable.

The script’s most promising element is Lex’s need to break through what she believes are Val’s defenses — beyond the obvious, what is keeping her from acknowledging how frightened she is of death? Shoulberg, a playwrighting MFA who has penned a couple of feature films, addresses this question and others in sometimes overlong monologues, directing his actors as if shaping a scene that will close with the dousing of stage lights. His camera movements, slow and self-conscious, enhance this quality instead of making it cinematic; and Jim Timperman’s photography, whose blandness matches the hospital setting, looks calibrated for TV.

Still, the actors (most of whom have substantial stage experience) are sufficiently invested in their parts to keep one hoping the picture will find a groove that never quite arrives.

Production company: Pigasus Pictures
Distributor: Freestyle Digital Media
Cast: Roberta Colindrez, John Ortiz, Judith Light, Zachary Spicer, Carson Meyer
Director-Screenwriter: Paul Shoulberg
Producers: John Armstrong, Zachary Spicer, Gordon Strain
Executive producer: Graham Sheldon
Director of photography: Jim Timperman
Production designer: Erin Holmes
Costume designer: Lara de Bruijn
Editor: Kevin Weaver
Composer: Zachary Walter
Casting directors: Gayle Keller, Allison Kirschner

94 minutes