Small, understated, but lovingly observed, Wayne Wang’s “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” adapted by Yiyun Li from her own short story. Mr. Shi (Henry O) is a widower and retired scientist who comes to the Midwest to live with his divorced daughter (Faye Yu) who left Beijing twelve years earlier to study. There’s beauty in the leisurely character of their interaction, a hushed quotidian captured by Swiss-born cinematographer Patrick Lindenmaier. Wayne Wang’s career as a feature director came with one of the first micro-budgeted success of the once-burgeoning American independent movement, 1982’s “Chan is Missing.” Working in much of his work with women or Chinese and Chinese-American themes, the 59-year-old director has made studio movies like the Susan Sarandon-Natalie Portman mother-daughter drama “Anywhere But Here” (1999) and the Jennifer Lopez vehicle, “Maid in Manhattan” (2002). But Wang alternates smaller projects. Shot the teensy-scaled “The Princess of Nebraska,” from another Yiyun Li story, about a young woman making a momentous choice, with smaller, mostly consumer-level cameras, including the main character’s cell phones, to be shown for free on YouTube starting October 17. 83m. (Ray Pride)
