'The Waiting' Review: A horror-romance-comedy that warms the cockles of your heart
At the outset, 'The Waiting' seems like a predictable horror-romance-comedy-ish film. There's a ghost in the attic...er, hotel room, and she isn't a bad sort. You know, like most ghosts are. The film has a tinge of Oscar Wilde's 'The Canterville Ghost', and a 'Just Like Heaven' feel to it, and you start warming up to it. Initially, you think you know where the story is going. There's a bumbling new staffer, Eric, at the hotel lodge, and he encounters this ghost, Elizabeth, who is a permanent guest in one of the hotel rooms. The rest of the staffers are used to her presence and secretly enjoy it when other guests run into her.
Eric strikes up an unusual friendship with Elizabeth after the first few scares. She communicates with him through text messages and blinking lights, and gradually reveals her unhappy past. This might seem like a turnoff at first, but you have to hold on a little longer. In a slow burn of the film, this isn't actually the main premise. Elizabeth is still suffering, not only due to her dark past but also because she is being used. By whom forms the climax of the film.
There are some pleasant and welcome twists towards the end of the film, and you don't see them coming. At its heart, 'The Waiting' is about two lonely people, who are trapped, in every sense of the word. They are waiting for some sort of peace, or rather an absolution. They find refuge and consolation in each other that makes this wait bearable, and as it turns out, you don't need words to communicate, all the time.
Miraculously, love blossoms between the two of them, and it reaches a satisfying conclusion.
'The Waiting' is a quiet and peaceful horror-romance film, that doesn't believe in much chest-beating and drama. The little jump-scares, in the beginning, are played more for laughs in the beginning and is a unique entry into the genre. Love and friendship aren't at the only virtues at stake here -- the film is also about the greed of the corporate world the commercialization of sentimental value. Nick Leali does a commendable job of a man who seems cheery on the surface, but just feels lonely and cut off from the rest of the world. Molly Ratterman as Elizabeth communicates paragraphs with her hollowed eyes and gestures.
This is a rather understated film and makes for a pleasant and melancholy watch. Not everyone's cup of tea, but still worth it.