Please Stand By

Please Stand By (2018) is Ben Lewin's gentle dramedy with Dakota Fanning, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Wendy, a young autistic woman, has written a 500-page Star Trek script. A Hollywood contest deadline is almost up, so she sets out to hand-deliver the manuscript herself.

Wendy lives in a group home on a careful daily routine she rarely breaks. When the mail lets her down, she packs a bag, grabs the dog and heads off alone from Oakland to Los Angeles for the first time in her life. The trip turns out tougher than any invented galaxy: missed buses, strangers, money slipping away. Her sister (Alice Eve) and caregiver (Toni Collette) scramble to find her, while Wendy steers by the logic of Mr. Spock, which she knows cold.

Lewin keeps the film quiet and warm, handling autism without melodrama or false uplift. Fanning carries the whole thing on a restrained, precise performance with nothing showy about it. A Patton Oswalt cameo as a cop who speaks fluent Klingon is a treat aimed straight at Trek fans. Stream Please Stand By (2018) online on iFILM.