Waiting (1991)

Director:

Jackie McKimmie

Writer:

Jackie McKimmie (written by)

Release Date:

25 July 1991 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A teenage boy wants to leave his home town.

Plot Keywords:

Pregnant Woman Nude | Surrogate Mother | Independent Film

Awards:

3 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Noni Hazlehurst	...	Clare
Deborra-Lee Furness	...	Diane
Frank Whitten	...	Michael
Helen Jones	...	Sandy
Denis Moore	...	Bill
Fiona Press	...	Therese
Ray Barrett	...	Frank
Noga Bernstein	...	Rosie
Peter Tu Tran	...	Tan
Brian Simpson	...	Booroomil
Matthew Fargher	...	Steve
Alan Glover	...	Policeman
Kaye Stevenson	...	Midwife
Mariette Rups-Donnelly	...	Gym instructor
Justin King	...	Muscle man

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Cessnock, New South Wales, Australia

Company:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)

Trivia:

Noni Hazlehurst really was pregnant - very pregnant - for parts of filming. This includes the various nude swimming footage during the film. Hazlehurst later quipped that pregnant was the best way to do a nude scene, because you didn't have to worry about feeling weight-conscious.

a comedy of errors and expectations

Australian writer/director has a talent for extended ensemble playing but her attempts at drama are diluted by her penchant for grotesquery.

Here artist Clare Fairweather (Noni Hazelhurst) is expecting the arrival of a child she has produced as a surrogate home birth for her friend Sandy (Helen Jones) one of her `mafia' group of female friends. When the birth is imminent, the isolated bush farmhouse where she lives is visited by friends and their extended families. However the waiting of the title brings about a crisis, as Clare considers keeping the baby, and that McKimmie offers no resolution is indicative of her touch.

McKimmie's screenplay includes a film of the birth which is being made in super 8 presented as black-framed point-of-view, Clare swimming under water, an abandoned castrated lamb that dies, Sandy having 2 adopted multicultural children, the house located on Perseverance Road, doubt about the father of Clare's child, rain, a constantly barking dog, infidelities, and the baby born in a caravan. The footage of spied upon doctors playing golf is witty and Clare's contractual yell is juxtaposed with girlie pictures on the ceiling, however the dialogue is on the level of strine cliches or lines like `You don't need a rectal thermometer to know who the assholes are' and `My career has miscarried'. The songs Que Sera Sera and Ave Maria on the soundtrack also are not assets. McKimmie has the balance to equal her portraits of men as fools with the women equally exposed, and she also shows the casual hostility of the Australian psyche.

McKimmie provides Jones with a long close-up when she hears that the baby is born, and reveals the essential loneliness of Clare amongst the clutter around her. Mention is made of the sensuality of Deborra-Lee Furness' Diane, though Hazelhurst, like in McKimmie's previous Australian Dream has been better served by Ken Cameron in Monkey Grip (1982) and by Glenda Hambly in Fran (1985).