By Ulrike Erhardt
Waiting
Written and directed by Jackie
McKimmie
With Jackie McKimmie, Noni Hazelhurst, Deborra-Lee Furness, Frank Whitten, Helen Jones, Denis Moore, Fiona Press and Ray Barrett
Reviewed by Ulrike Erhadt
It's amazing what can happen when four women, including two aspiring mothers (one true to the cliché feminist) and a yuppie career woman and their various hangers-on, get together to await the arrival of a baby.
What should be the greatest experience of them all, is here riddled with frustration, and not only because the mother is a surrogate. Unsatisfying or non-existent relationships, not only with the other gender, have something to do with it too.
While a very pregnant Noni Hazelhurst isn't bashful about showing her fertile body in all its glory, the film queries every aspect of surrogacy.
But when we see that mothers are more important than fathers, friendship preferable to marriage, midwives better than doctors and nature more favourable to city life, we know somehow what the outcome of the movie will be. A few inconsistencies where these strong women are outclassed by a man who emerges as a hero, are easily forgiven because he was such a yobbo.
All along I was reminded of a tune from the '60s called "If I Had a Hammer" because I have never seen a film which exploited motherhood more.
While listening to the "Ave Maria" and Waiting's other theme song, "Que Sera, Sera", it became obvious the future was ours to see, bright and clearly, even though a bad sound track didn't allow me to listen to all their gossip.
But that didn't stop me and the rest of audience from feeling elevated after witnessing the birth of a child. Me for having missed out on such an experience and probably never getting any closer to the subject, while others obviously revelled in their fond memories.
It's a life-affirming film in which emotions defeat logic. That might explain its ending. Hallelujah! It's a boy. What a shame it was just a film.