The Waiting City

As one might’ve surmised from the title, The Waiting City boasts an unapologetically aimless atmosphere that, unfortunately, becomes increasingly difficult to stomach as the movie unfolds. The film stars Radha Mitchell and Joel Edgerton as Fiona and Ben, a married couple from Australia who have arrived in India to pick up their adopted daughter – with the bulk of the storyline revolving around their ongoing efforts at passing the time prior to meeting their sickly child. Before it wears out its welcome, The Waiting City establishes itself as a pleasant enough piece of work that benefits substantially from its scenery and from the stellar work of its two stars – with Mitchell’s expectedly solid efforts proving instrumental in the movie’s early (yet mild) success. The progressively repetitive nature of the movie’s structure – Fiona and Ben bicker, tour the city, bicker some more, etc – inevitably comes to exacerbate the narrative’s thoroughly uneventful nature, although it’s not until the quasi-fake breakup rolls around that the viewer starts to seriously lose interest in the protagonists’ ongoing endeavors. The inclusion of an admittedly surprising third-act development does temporarily elevate the proceedings, yet this is hardly enough to compensate for The Waiting City‘s otherwise underwhelming sensibilities.

** out of ****