Next Time

Running time: N/A

Next Time has all the ingredients of a quirky love story. Matt is a naive 19-year-old, fresh off the bus from a small town in Ohio. Evelyn, 38, is a street-wise, big city gal. They meet in a downtown laundromat, where Matt pumps Evelyn for advice on detergent and women. With nothing better to do on Saturday nights than fold clothes and engage in soul-searching conversation, they look forward to the next time they meet. As director/writer L. Alan Fraser makes clear, that's all that should matter between these two lonely people. But Evelyn is black; Matt is white. And the laundromat is set in south central Los Angeles during the first trial of the police officers charged in the Rodney King beating. Evelyn and Matt's fitful, rocky relationship perfectly reduces the conversation between the races to a single dialog that asks very tough questions and offers no easy answers. Like that iceberg in Titanic, the riots, spurred by the trial's not-guilty verdict, loom on the horizon. Will their hard-won friendship survive? By the end of the film, you will find yourself ardently hoping that for Evelyn and Matt, there will, indeed, be a next time. --Frank Elley