L'attente

"The Wait" ("L'Attesa") is a film that has really nice acting but the story itself didn't do much for me. Its vague ending left me cold and the behaviors of the leading lady, Anna (Juliet Binoche) just didn't make a lot of sense--regardless of what REALLY happened at the end.

When the film begins, Jeanne (Lou de Laâge) arrives at a Sicilian villa and instead of being greeted, she's given a meal by a servant and then retires to bed without seeing the woman of the house, Anna. The next day, Jeanne comes downstairs and finds that there's been some sort of funeral...and Jeanne tells her it's because her brother died...though it's pretty obvious that this might NOT be the truth. Jeanne has come to see Anna's son and spend her vacation with him....but through the course of the film, the son never arrives and Jeanne is feeling abandoned...though Anna and her seem to have a few moments together bonding.

Where does all this go? Well, as I mentioned above, the ending is a bit vague and it's easy to see two very different interpretations. I didn't really care about either one because Anna's actions simply didn't make much sense....and because of that the film lost me. Well acted, this film needed some better writing as the characters didn't always seem realistic or believable.

Plot and character are the classic drivers of cinema but there are other forces of equal impact. Some films are driven more by what does not happen than what does, and photographic technique can transform inaction into deep meaning. This is the case in The Wait (2016), a film title that describes both the story's narrative arc and how it will be experienced by most viewers. Long silent close-ups that record little more than an eyebrow muscle tightening or the strands of hair on a neck are used to convey emotional power of surprising intensity.

Based entirely on the interaction between two women and the inability of one to reveal a painful truth to the other, the plot and character range is unusually sparse. The story opens with a funeral and the palpable raw grief on the face of a mother who has lost a son. Anna (Juliette Binoche) is in a deep dark place when she takes a call from beautiful young Jeanne (Lou de Laage) who asks why her son Giuseppe did not meet her at the airport. Anna invites Jeanne to wait for him at the Sicilian family villa, knowing he will never come. The pair move from a strained and awkward start to a warm friendship, all the while with Jeanne confused and Anna struggling with suppressed emotional turmoil. Anna has Giuseppe's cell phone and listens to Jeanne's desperate calls to her son, but withholding the truth gives him a tangible presence that keeps him alive and eases Anna's pain. For as long as she can gaze upon Jeanne, she can see through her dead son's eyes and share his delight in her innocence and charm.

This story rests entirely on the extraordinary ability of its two stars to convey the full gamut of emotion with total authenticity. The face of Binoche in particular is like a canvas onto which she paints every colour of the rainbow, with subtle shifts of expression that span joyful laughter to the very edge of sanity. Many viewers will find this a difficult film to watch because of the gradually escalating tension created by Anna holding back the truth from Jeanne, and this transforms the drama into a psychological thriller. It is impossible not to judge Anna or not to consider how we would handle such a situation, and this self-reflective process only heightens tensions both inside the film and within ourselves. The performances could easily have slipped into a melodrama, but instead, the minimalist dialogue and slow pace creates an open space into which is hung a finely wrought portrait of parental grief.

Too slow, borderline unwatchable. It's 100 minutes but it felt at least 150. It should have been at least 20 minutes shorter. The worst thing is that it plays like a mystery, and there are no mysteries here, even though director tries hard to make it a bit enigmatic and cryptic. If it was a "pure" drama movie, without the "mystery" element, it could have been a good, even great. Because there are positives here, it's well acted and well directed. Juliette Binoche is so charismatic that she almost turns this boredom into an interesting movie. Furthermore, cinematography is nice and overall, movie's technical aspects are above average.

Yet, it's a failure. This could have been good because Binoche's motives for doing what she did, are crystal clear to me. I understood what she's going through and why she behaves like this. But still, the mystery element is unnecessary.

Ending was great.

"L'Attesa" (2015 release from Italy; 99 min.; English title: "The Wait") brings the story of two women. As the movie opens, we see Anna (played by Juliette Binoche) at a church service, it looks like a funeral. Not long thereafter, Anna gets a phone call, during which she mentions "He's not here, I'm his mother, but come on over". Shortly thereafter, a young lady named Jeanne arrives at the estate (in Sicily, we later learn). She is the girlfriend of Anna's son Giuseppe. Anna tells her that Giuseppe will be back later in the week, in time for Easter. Where is Giuseppe? Why won't he take Jeanne's calls? What is really going on here? To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the feature debut of Italian writer-director Piero Messina, who previously was assistant-director in the Oscar-winning "The Great Beauty". Here, he builds a mystery as to why Giuseppe is absent, when he might return (or not) and what really happened to him. We are left guessing from start to finish, while we see the great Juliette Binoche deliver another towering performance as she grieves (whose funeral was that anyway? do we really believe it when Anna tells Jeanne "My brother died"?), Up-and-coming French actress Lou de Laâge as Jeanne is equally outstanding, a new talent we surely have not seen the last of. As mentioned, the movie is set in Sicily, which I typically do not associate with lakes and water, both of which are prominent in the film. Last but certainly not least, there is a ton of great music in the movie, both the original score (which director Messina co-composed I might add) and songs placements. There is a note-worthy scene in the movie which plays out as Leonard Cohen's "Waiting for the Miracle" is blaring, and the XX's "Missing" plays over the movie's end credits. There couldn't have been a more appropriate song to close out the movie.

"L'Attesa" opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati and I couldn't wait to see it. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at turned out to be a private screening: I was literally the only person in the theater, to my surprise. That said, it is clear that this movie is going to struggle to find a large audience: it is slow-moving, with no clear resolutions, and "all talk, no action". These are not criticisms as far as I'm concerned, au contraire, I found myself mesmerized by the way the movie unfolded, and this flew by in no time. If you are in the mood for a somber but top-notch foreign film dealing with grief, absence, and longing, I'd encourage you to check this out, be it in the theater, on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. "L'Attesa" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

This visually beautiful, if self-consciously arty, Italian film marks the feature debut of Piero Messina who certainly displays all the promise of a major film-maker if he can only learn to move things along at a somewhat more acceptable pace and be less concerned with the 'look' of his films and more concerned with the feelings of his characters. This is a somewhat high-toned piece based on a play by Pirandello and it's very much designed around the performances of Juliette Binoche as a grieving mother and Lou de Laage as her son's girlfriend. It's certainly well done but it also smacks of the worst kind of art-house cinema; this is Antonioni-light. See it by all means though you may have to keep pinching yourself from time to time to stay awake.