Variety: Apart from the image of Jesus hanging from the cross — which, incidentally, is the first thing we see in Italian director Piero Messina’s “The Wait” — perhaps the most instantly recognizable scene in all Christian art is the Pietae, or the lamentation of Christ, in which the Virgin Mary cradles her lifeless son in her arms. While not a religious film per se, Messina’s profoundly dolorous debut — the sort that suits festivals just fine, but makes for depressing arthouse fare — could easily be seen as the visually gifted director’s reinterpretation of this iconic moment, casting Juliette Binoche (since “Blue,” cinema’s most gifted griever) as a mother awaiting the return (or resurrection?) of her absent son.
THR
Actress Juliette Binoche has conquered a wide range of roles in her career from comedy to thriller. She returns to a role she knows all too well after her award-winning 1994 turn as a grieving mother in Blue.
In first-time director Piero Messina’s The Wait, we find Binoche as Anna, trying to hold court in a grand Sicilian villa after the death of her son. When his girlfriend Jeanne (Lou de Laage) calls, announcing her unexpected arrival, Anna doesn’t have the heart to tell her the news. The two get to know each other while the painful secret hangs heavy in the air.
