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Waiting, Review: Coma dilemma

Death is the only inevitable reality in life. It is also ‘the end’ that leaves the deceased at ‘eternal peace’, or at least at no risk of further physical or mental trauma, while family, friends and others who knew him/her, cope with the loss in a variety of ways. While it can be argued that some people cope with the event more objectively, the vast majority suffer great pain, even shock, of a magnitude that does not quite compare with anything in this world. Waiting is a look at two individuals who are not dead, at least not yet, but nor are they alive. They are in coma. And their spouses, a man and a woman, who can do little else, are just Waiting.

Death, suicide, and lately, euthanasia and coma, are such emotional, eternal, volcanoes that humans have no answers to them. Religions, nations and even NGOs have sharply differing views. In this context, the film is a bold effort. But realising that it cannot hope to provide convincing arguments in favour of one point of view or another, it chooses, instead, to dwell on how two contrasting personalities, with a generation gap to boost, approach their situations in dealing with comatose better halves, and, in the process, influence and befriend each other.

Young, outspoken, and impassioned Tara Deshpande (Kalki Koechlin), who works in advertising, receives tragic news: Her husband of only six weeks has slipped into a coma after a car accident in Kerala. She takes the first flight to be with him, only to find him in a really serious condition. Despondent and desperate for answers, in a situation where she has little control, Tara finds an unlikely friend in Shiv (Naseeruddin Shah), a gentle and hopeful man, who has become a regular in the hospital, where his wife has been in a coma for over 8 months. They can relate to each other deeply, both isolated from other support and waiting for an optimistic, miraculous outcome. However, as each reaches an important crossroad in caring for their spouses, Tara and Shiv realise that their fear of change is holding them back from making necessary decisions.

A pooled product of three writers, Waiting gives to the audience, among other bits of competent character delineating, three very well-etched characters—Shiv, Tara and Girish (Rajat’s company colleague, in the Kerala office). Others, too, are well-drawn out and blend seamlessly with the tableau. Two Indians and one British writer take credit: James Ruzicka is the a graduate of Cambridge University and the London Film School, he has written comedy for BBC Radio 4, film criticism for FilmExposed, and a number of feature film screenplays that are currently in development; Atika Chohan has worked with Yash Raj Productions as a writer on the popular TV series Rishta.com, started her career in Delhi as a journalist with The Hindu, and later worked with the news channel CNN-IBN, studied screen-writing at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, and has a Master’s degree in English Literature from Delhi University, last film: Margarita with a Straw. And, of course, the director, Anu Menon, co-wrote.

All three deserve kudos for piecing together a milieu where nothing sticks out like a sore thumb, and where strong personalities do not impose or inflict themselves, either on each other or on the viewers. There are, as in life, so many grey areas in the film, that it writes itself; the writer, or director, seems to be absent on occasions. Menon, now 40, has made only one feature film before this: London Paris New York, also about notably differing personalities. She made two well-received short films, Ravi Goes to School, and Baby, a documentary on a Bengali domestic help, who wrote a bestseller. Trained at the London Film School, Menon grew up in Delhi and worked in advertising in India as well as Singapore, before settling in London. NOT to be confused with Anu Menon, the comic VJ. Waiting is a film that can work many ways, though, in the end, that might turn out to be a disadvantage. It works as a black comedy, with many guilty chuckles. It works as a generation gap drama, a language and accent take-off, a case for acceptance of menstrual cycles as part of life and of marketing, supercilious and pretentious doctors in the Indian medical system, as a case for not keeping secrets from your spouse, as a warm, tender, platonic romance, between a lonely, 60ish man, facing ‘widower’hood and a 30ish woman, facing widowhood, barely out of a torrid honeymoon, ...

Getting Shah on board was major help, says Menon, and rightly so. Yes, the angled face, the slight shake of the head, left-to-right and vice versa, have all become signatures decades ago, but they still work. What is refreshing is that he plays a man who is strong about his convictions, yet extremely unsure about everything else, a most unlike Naseeruddin Shah part. It is a challenge for Koechlin (Dev D, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Margarita with a Straw), as was Margarita with a Straw, and she does well. Why do they have to name her Tara Kapoor-Deshpande beats me. She tries hard, but just cannot pass off as Indian. If there was one actress who could convincingly portray a woman who teaches Naseer to start using the f word, it had to be Kalki. Rajeev Ravindranathan is a delight to watch and hear. As the senior doctor, Rajat Kapoor has a few moments, not too many though.

Waiting is interesting while it lasts its 98 minutes, at the end of which, it drops you just where it picked you up from. Some call it organic unity. Others might feel that this journey has led nowhere.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhnbNJacdAQ