The Waiting City (2010)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Australian couple Fiona (Radha Mitchell) and Ben Simmons (Joel Edgerton) arrive in Calcutta to adopt and pick up Indian orphan Lakshmi. Fiona is frustrated by the waiting and the bureaucracy. Ben is a laid back musician who reconnects with Scarlett (Isabel Lucas). The couple fights about their different view points and the adoption. They decide to go find Lakshmi at the orphanage while they immerse themselves in the spirituality of India.The couple starts out as being unappealing and they never recover from that. She's a Type A, entitled westerner. He's uncaring and almost cold to her. The movie confronts that idea quickly. Ben is so clueless to her anxiety that it really frustrated me. The only thing saving Fiona is that she is obviously going to find enlightenment and salvation in the end. I don't like this couple and I stop caring about them.

This post is about the movie The Waiting City, I just finished watching. It is a story of a mystic- love that how an Australian couple come to an unknown land to search for a baby to adopt and finally the couple discovered how much they love each other. They surprisingly become a part of the culture, faith and the society. I am surprised to see the acting of Radha Mitchell,and Joel Edgerton, they did very well. I see Indo-English corroborated films by Mira Nair,Deepa Mehta, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Vic Sarin, Wes Anderson and so many directors but Claire McCarthy, she really did a good work. No Indian film maker can think such movie to their point of view of Indian travelers. The cinematography of the movie is not satisfactory in the sense of motion picture. It seems like the film is made for television short screen. But overall the film scored very well. I see Samrat Chakrabarti in his other films but in The Waiting City he did very well as a porter. The same story and the same film could be more breath taking by working on the cogitate. Wish all the best for the future projects.

Ben Simmons (Joel Edgerton) and his wife Fiona (Radha Mitchell) are a married Australian couple travelling together through India. It is revealed that they are looking to adopt a child there since Fiona cannot have children of her own. Yet they find that the process is a troublesome one, regularly delayed by the paperwork. They stay in a hotel room, assisted by an Indian man named Krishna who provides them with advice on locations and attractions. Fiona though is regularly devoted to her work with her firm back home and seems less interested by the colourful surroundings, which frustrates Ben. Where she is far more city orientated, he seems to have a greater sense of the locations and the people. Their different attitudes come into conflict, particularly when a Ben meets Scarlett (Isabel Lucas), a girl he used to work with when he was still making music. These issues put a strain on Ben's marriage as he and his wife wait in their room for the agency to contact them.This is the fourth film written and directed by Australian filmmaker Claire McCarthy and it's a picture that vividly photographs India as a vibrant and deeply mystical place. The film was shot on location in India, mostly in Calcutta, and there is a commendable degree of verisimilitude in the way that the streets have been chaotically filmed by McCarthy and her cinematographer Denson Baker. The lanes that Joel and Fiona explore are trampled by hundreds of people at a time. Some of these people are children running along the streets. Others are just working adults, like the merchants that regularly try to coax Ben and Fiona into buying goods. There are strange abnormalities too, suggestive of the sense of mythology that has been etched into the city, like when Fiona is disorientated and thinks she is seeing a woman with many arms, only for a child being carried on her back to be revealed. It is because of the authenticity of the film's visuals that a palpable atmosphere surrounds the India's lower classes here.There are less impressive elements relating to the script though. The pacing of the narrative stammers into its second hour too slowly, mainly because of the film's tendency to move in tangents. The subplot involving Isabel Lucas's character Scarlett is a primary example. It raises speculation about Joel's commitment to his wife and there are some weighty tensions between them but it feels unresolved because the character Scarlett moves in and out of the picture. The film also has a weak grasp on the ideas of spirituality. At one point Fiona admits that she can feel the spirit of her deceased mother in the city. But a potentially interesting idea is a rather transparent one because it isn't reflected on ever again. In another scene Fiona does not take part in a ritual and it might have been more interesting if the dialogue made reflections on this after the film's rather tragic climax. In spite of these deficiencies there are two solid and likable performances here through Edgerton and Mitchell. Their roles are constructed to the point where one has to question what they see in each other. It is again never touched on but at least the frustrations and the emotions shared between them ring true. Lucas's part seems to be underwritten and her character is a mild distraction to the story.The Waiting City is a minor Australian picture that is rich in its atmosphere and sense of culture. Yet it is also marred by a problematic screenplay and uneven pacing. It wades through the tangents of the first act, towards a second half where the characters fail to reflect on what has really transformed their lives. In such a deeply spiritual place the film never seems quite as profound as it should be because both the characters and the audience remain as outsiders. There are questions over the relationship too, but both leads at least make them likable tourists, who only just skim on the surface of India.

I wanted to enjoy this film. On paper, it had everything going for it. Australian couple looking to adopt a young girl from India and their trials and tribulations in Calcutta as they wait for the final bureaucracy to clear.But sadly, it did not quite gel. For one, it was too long. At almost 2 hours, the pace, which hardly frantic, dragged at times. There was little chemistry between the two leads. And even though very different (she a lawyer, he a once-successful muso), their relationship wasn't wholly convincing - a crucial aspect of the film considering they are on screen together for much of the film.