A
young man has died, leaving behind a saintly mother and a morally compromised
girlfriend. Does that give you any kind of archetypal inklings? How about the
fact it takes place in the days leading up to Easter? Giuseppe is dead, but who
knows? Giuseppe just might come again in Piero Messina’s L’Attesa (The Wait) (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
The
details are sketchy (better get used to that), but the upshot is clear. Anna is
devastated by her son’s premature death. She had resigned herself to her grief
until Jeanne comes knocking. Evidently, Giuseppe invited his French ex for
Easter before his destiny took a tragic turn. Clearly unaware of his death, she
eagerly hopes to patch up their relationship. Instead of breaking the bad news,
Anna lets her continue to expect Giuseppe’s imminent arrival. It sounds
terribly cruel, but it seems to allow Anna to feel some sort of connection to
her son through the stunningly unintuitive Jeanne.
Nobody
wants to call Jeanne an idiot, but she walks in on the funeral reception without
picking up on any mournful vibes. Still, it should be conceded Anna is quite
persuasive. Like any Sicilian mother (in her case, formerly French), she will
serve up plenty of food for Jeanne.
Juliette
Binoche is at the top of a short list of maybe two, who could play Anna with
the grace and dignified reserve she demands. We can see how deeply she is
hurting and how loathe she is to show it. On the other hand, Lou de Laâge is an open book,
broadcasting her yearnings and insecurities with the fervency of youth. Those
contrasts play well together in their many shared scenes.
Having
served as assistant director on The Great Beauty, Messina is often considered a protégé of Paolo Sorrentino. You can
see Messina has a similar affinity for bold visuals, particularly the grand,
sweeping tracking shot. However, the effect on viewers is mostly distancing in L’Attesa rather than giddily
intoxicating, as in Beauty.
Regardless, Francesco Di Giacomo’s cinematography is wonderfully lush and heavy
with the suggestion of otherworldliness.
Messina
also builds to an is-it-or-isn’t climax that ought to be intriguing for its
ambiguity but is really just frustratingly coy. Frankly, so many films have led
us down this opened-ended road before, most cineastes would find concrete
certainty much more interesting and novel.