I wish I could say that my hopes were rewarded, but L’attesa
does not measure up, and Messina is no Sorrentino, at least not yet.
The movie definitely has some good things going for it. For
one thing, It is lovely to look at. Set in rural Sicily, the mis en
scene is invitingly, comfortably upper class: a lovely, old estate home, a
pristine lake surrounded by forest and low hills. Interior shots in particular
are artfully framed. Many are shot using ambient morning or evening light, creating
warm interior tones, glowing skin, and so forth. Messina features long takes,
with lots of close-ups; and when your subject is Ms. Binoche, that’s not a bad
strategy. Her co-star, twenty-five year old Lou de Laâge, a French actress with
expressive eyes, a luscious mouth and (occasionally) a sweet, girlish smile, also
gets a share of the camera’s attention, and this too is a good thing. In short, L’attesa is a visually attractive
film.
This picture is essentially what they call a two-hander,
featuring two women of different generations, tied together by their love of
the same man: Giuseppe. Binoche is Anna,
Giuseppe’s mother; and de Laâge is his girlfriend, Jeanne.
The film opens as a funeral reception at Anna’s home is
concluding. Anna looks bereaved. Jeanne is just arriving from Paris at Giuseppe’s
invitation. The two women don’t know each other, and Jeanne doesn’t know what’s
going on. Giuseppe’s not there, but no one explains why. When she asks where he
is, she gets surprised looks, but no answers.
Normally, I don’t go into too much detail about plot, so as
to avoid giving away the ending and/or spoiling your pleasure of discovery. However,
there is little to give away here. Presumably, Messina wants us to share in
Jeanne’s confusion and to get caught up in a seeming mystery regarding
Giusseppe’s whereabouts. But the “secret” is quite evident early on, and in
fact, precious little “unfolds” over the course of this movie, because there is
virtually no action, and the dialogue is spare and adds little of interest. If you are concerned about spoilers, however,
please skip the next three paragraphs.
[spoiler paragraph 1] After he has invited Jeanne to join him
at the family estate in Sicily, but before she arrives, Giusseppe dies. Just
how isn’t explained. Anna had not been told that Jeanne was coming, but when
she does, Anna decides not to tell her the bad news right away. Initially, Anna
says nothing at all to explain Giuseppi’s absence, but the next day she
indicates that he had to leave for awhile but would be home in a few days. Later
still, she adds that he’ll be back by Easter (two or three days off), but this
exchange occurs off camera. So Jeanne has to cool her heels, waiting and
waiting.
[spoiler paragraph 2] Along the way, we watch Anna quietly
mourning her son and contemplating … what? Presumably her loss, her loneliness,
how her son died, what to say to Jeanne. I’m guessing – we don’t know what she
is thinking. We just see a seties of what would
be interminable shots of Binoche, sometimes in close up, sometimes at a
distance framed by her empty house, staring off into the distance – images that
are interesting only because it’s Binoche. She is endlessly interesting to
watch, even if we know nothing about her character, as is the case here.
[spoiler paragraph 3] Jeanne repeatedly calls her boyfriend’s
cell number leaving plaintive messages for him, takes some walks, swims in the
lake (where she meets and lightly flirts with a couple of local fellows), and
has a few desultory conversations with Anna. A tenuous connection between the
two begins to form, despite and coincident with the veil of tension and unease created
by Anna’s dishonesty. Eventually, Anna sits Jeanne down and tells her that the
reason Giuseppi isn’t there is that he is dumping Jeanne, wants nothing to do
with her, and will not return until she leaves. Jeanne is devastated, even as
she realizes that this can’t be true – it makes absolutely no sense at all. When,
a short while later Jeanne realizes the real truth, there is a mournful,
condoling, tearful hug, and the picture is over.
For an hour and forty minutes we have waited for the story to
get filled in, for some telling detail, some background, some character
development, some answers. But, the wait
is in vain. Outside of the circumstance that Anna is wealthy, widowed and now suffering
a terrible new loss, we know nothing about her. We know even less about Jeanne.
Anna’s rationale for not telling Jeanne about Giuseppe continues to be an
intriguing question for awhile, one upon which viewers are supposed to
speculate, I suppose; but an explanation or justification is never provided. Her
cruel lie to Jeanne near the end makes even less sense. Eventually we simply
lose patience with the movie.
In the near total absence of plot, context or character,
there’s ultimately nothing to grab onto. The fact that the film looks good only
goes so far. Binoche and de Laâge give lovely performances, individually
and together, within the constraints of the screenplay, but fine acting can’t
overcome this movie’s larger deficiencies.
Messina’s ostensible aim in making L’attesa is the
real mystery. I presume that he conceived of the picture as an exploration of sorrow
and grief through the use of mood and tone. But grief is not really explored in
L’attesa. It is depicted, which
is not at all the same thing. Even the depiction is pretty one dimensional - mostly
of a reserved, introspective, quiet variety. There’s no wailing, no rending of
clothes, pounding of chests, or the like - just a few private tears, and the
meditative, doleful, unfocussed staring by Anna. There’s nothing wrong with
that, but over an extended period it’s pretty dull to watch. This is not to say
that Anna’s grief appears false or fake. Binoche doesn’t do phony. In Jeanne’s
case, when eventually she figures out what’s happened and that Anna has been
lying to her for days, you’d expect anger, but instead she seems just as
taciturn as Anna in her sorrow. In all events, there’s little contrast between
the two women other than their ages: they seem of similar temperament, which
removes another opportunity for tension and thus for the audience to be interested.
It has been suggested that an important theme of this film is
faith. I don’t buy it. True, the movie
opens with an image of a crucifix on a wall, and all the “action” occurs in the
days leading up to Easter - there’s even an Easter celebration which Anna
attends on the last evening, in which Christian iconography appears – Jesus on
the cross, Madonna and child, etc. Other than by her attendance at the parade,
neither Anna nor anyone around her says or does anything that suggests, much
less reveals that her faith, if any, is deep and/or has had any effect on her
behavior. Sure, there’s the obvious Mary-Jesus analogy, but without any other
context, that gets us nowhere, particularly since we know absolutely nothing
about Giuseppe.
For myself, I wanted to like L’attessa, and I stuck
with it for its one hundred minutes, but it was an effort, one that was not
rewarded by the end. See it for Binoche, if you will, but don’t expect a
meaningful experience.
100 Minutes In Italian and French, Subtitled.
Grade: C+
Streams free on Amazon Prime (for Prime members) and Kanopy; also to rent on many platforms, including Amazon, Vudu and others
