The Wait / L’attesa (Messina, 2015): Italy

Reviewed by Wayne Derossett.  Viewed at the 2016 Santa Barbara Film Festival in the Fiesta Theater, Monday, Feb 8 at 2:40 PM.

The wonderfully talented Juliette Binoche stars in a deceitful tale of a mother visited by her son’s jilted girlfriend, who comes to rekindle a broken romance.

Binoche, born in Paris of French and Polish descent, is best known for her roles in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) and The English Patient (1996) winning an Oscar and a BAFTA award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.  She also starred in Chocolat (2000) with Johnny Depp.

In The Wait, she bides her time and gets to know her son’s fiancée, all the time waiting to tell her son’s girlfriend some bad news.  And when she finally does, it takes us down a painful path that takes the story a new direction.

It is through her reluctance that we learn about her loss, but the story later reveals it to be something else.  Something that was an artful deception of the audience as we explore the depths of her emotions.

The story pacing was slow and deliberate.  The cinematography; superb.  It builds the story upon Italian architecture and beautiful green landscapes and thoughtful interior scenes.

I found this movie totally enjoyable, and the imagery took me to places I didn’t know I wanted to go.  I want to see it again just for the visuals.  It was so evocative, it made me into a better writer.

The director and writer, Piero Messina is relatively uncredited.  He previously directed a 2013 TV Series documentary, Masterpieces Unveiled (Italy) and a few shorts in Italy, Netherlands and France.  His directorial performance in The Wait should immediately catapult him into much greater films.

Cinematography credit goes Francesco Di Giacomo, known for his work on The First Beautiful Thing (2010), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) Hannibal (2001), and U-571 (2000).