jQuery asynchronous function call, no AJAX request

This seems silly, but I can't find how to do an asynchronous function call with jQuery that doesn't involve some server-side request. I have a slow function that iterates through a lot of DOM elements, and I want the browser to not freeze up while this function is running. I want to display a little indicator before the slow function is called, then when the slow function returns, I want to hide the indicator. I have the following:

$('form#filter', parentNode).submit(function() {
  var form = $(this);
  indicator.show();
  var textField = $('input#query', form);
  var query = jQuery.trim(textField.val());
  var re = new RegExp(query, "i");
  slowFunctionCall(); // want this to happen asynchronously; all client-side
  indicator.hide();
  return false;
});

Currently I submit the form and the indicator isn't displayed, the browser freezes, and then slowFunctionCall is finished.

Edit: I used Vivin's answer, specifically the Sitepoint link to get the following solution:

var indicator = $('#tagFilter_loading', parentNode);
indicator.hide();
var spans = $('div#filterResults span', parentNode);
var textField = $('input#query', parentNode);
var timer = undefined, processor = undefined;
var i=0, limit=spans.length, busy=false;
var filterTags = function() {
  i = 0;
  if (processor) {
    clearInterval(processor);
  }
  indicator.show();
  processor = setInterval(function() {
    if (!busy) {
      busy = true;
      var query = jQuery.trim(textField.val()).toLowerCase();
      var span = $(spans[i]);
      if ('' == query) {
        span.show();
      } else {
        var tagName = span.attr('rel').toLowerCase();
        if (tagName.indexOf(query) == -1) {
          span.hide();
        }
      }
      if (++i >= limit) {
        clearInterval(processor);
        indicator.hide();
      }
      busy = false;
    }
  }, 1);
};
textField.keyup(function() {
  if (timer) {
    clearTimeout(timer);
  }
  /* Only start filtering after the user has finished typing */
  timer = setTimeout(filterTags, 2000);
});
textField.blur(filterTags);

This shows and hides the indicator and also doesn't freeze the browser. You get to watch the DOM elements being hidden as it works, which is what I was going for.