‘The Wait’ Netflix Movie Review - Bad Film With Good Intentions

The Wait, directed by Fiyin Gambo and Yemi Morafa, has a runtime of 2 hours and 1 minute. However, I can swear I watched the film for almost 4 hours. Apparently, time doesn't fly when you are not having fun. You feel the weight of every excruciating second while watching this film. Unsurprisingly, then, we wait for the end credits to come and save us. That wait, however, can prove to be long and tiresome.

I have become tired of using the line "bad film with good intentions," but most of the movies I have watched for the past few days have not given me anything original or substantial to talk about. So yes, The Wait arrives with good intentions, but its execution is downright terrible. In fact, there is a debate going on in my mind about whether The Wait is better or worse than Disconnect: The Wedding Planner. I watched the former after sitting through the latter, and let me tell you, it feels as if I have come out of a nightmare. I saw myself running in a forest and coming across my doppelganger, who looked at me with a stern expression. It could be my subconscious silently scolding me for purposefully watching films like The Wait and Disconnect.

The Wait is based on Yewande Zaccheaus' book, God's Waiting Room, and I wonder what the author must have thought about this adaptation. If I have to guess, she must not be too happy with this product. That's why the original book is mentioned by a character in the film. It might be Zaccheaus' way of saying, "Don't judge my work through this film. Rather, buy my book and read it."

The Wait is about a waiting room run by Nara, a doctor. It's simply a support group for women who have lost their newborns. The members air their grievances, talking about their family life and how they are coping with the loss. The film is also about a man seeking a job (he wants to be an architect and can also dance), a divorcee who is constantly told to remarry, and a woman who has no interest in adoption. These characters never become flesh and blood individuals, as the film reduces them into educational tools. They merely preach and enlighten us about things like adoption, how a woman has the right to not marry anyone and be independent, and how you need to be patient as you will eventually reach your goal.

The characters repetitively make the same points, and the scenes are written with big exclamation marks (everything is treated with utmost importance). From confrontations with toxic mothers to encounters with women who have their own children, each moment is clumsily designed to make a statement. Scenes like the one with a man asking for a son or the one where someone suggests ordering pizzas in the support group are shoehorned into the film to pad out its runtime. Other scenes, like when a man is seen praying to Jesus, begin and end so abruptly that they become pointless. The support group members go to a beach to have fun, but we don't see them having fun. This scene, like all the others, simply exists to deliver a message (in this case, the lesson is that you find happiness when you move on).

When a husband mentions how he, too, imagined a life with his unborn child, we cut to the visual of the husband reading a book to the pregnant belly of her wife. This choice undercuts the emotional intensity of the moment. During an inept chase sequence, the camera inexplicably cuts to an overhead shot of the houses, which temporarily disconnects us from the action. Due to these missteps, even some slightly effective scenes (a woman telling god that she does not want to adopt a baby, a character talking about PCOS) end up losing their power. When you hear a character say, "It's getting tiring," you immediately mutter, "Same pinch."

Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times