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The Waiting Room (2007)

Director: Roger Goldby

Time Out rating

Average user rating

12 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Roger Goldby’s amiable first feature, a study of love lost and found in autumnal Balham, offers mild, easy pleasures, even if it stalks emotional truths rather than pierces them. Likeable single mother Anna (Anne-Marie Duff) lives next door to a pair of yuppies, brittle Jem (Zoe Telford) and selfish George (Rupert Graves), who prefers to sneak next door for sex rather than look for a job. Elsewhere, gentle care-home nurse Stephen (Ralf Little) has a decent enough relationship with his clingy girlfriend Fiona (Christine Bottomley), but he evades all talk of babies and can’t get his mind off Anna, the girl he bumped into at the station the other day…

We know Anna and Stephen are meant for each other from the moment their paths cross. They each, separately, have lots of time for the elderly, which is a sure sign of compassion in a film that relies heavily on obvious images of trains to suggest strangers passing in the night. The oldies at Stephen’s care home are further signposts: dying Helen (Phyllida Law) warns Stephen against believing the grass can be greener, while absent-minded Roger (Frank Finlay) might not be as senile as he looks. Fair play to Goldby for bucking a trend for extremes by looking to the city’s middle classes and elderly for drama, but ‘The Waiting Room’ would be a better film if he’d focused harder on fewer characters and leant less heavily on poor music and lingering shots of faces.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1972, 4 – 10 June 2008

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User reviews of this film

Jo said...

Posted on Aug 19 2010 19:20 and forgot to rate..:) there you go

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Jo said...

Posted on Aug 19 2010 19:19 loved it. so honest and touching.still in my mind and i think it will stay longer. made me think about my relationship and influenced my everyday life.

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Maureen said...

Posted on Jul 22 2008 13:09 This was a really touching and thought provoking film. I lovd it. I liked the slow pace, the acting, the ideas, the music. I liked seeing those areas of south London up there on the big screen, with the architecture and the way London looks just there to enjoy. Some of these little reviews have been so mean and so clearly from people who must love Hollywood and things American. Please let's see more work by Roger Goldby and more of this relaxed approach to timing and dialogue. I just wanted more and more of it. But it ended!

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lynette said...

Posted on Jul 19 2008 20:39 Wonderful film, very sensitively acted - no cliches at all. Could have heard a pin drop in the cinema it was that absorbing.

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wendy said...

Posted on Jul 16 2008 17:58 Absolutely a nice film.Romantica nd well acted.actors are wonderful.

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Emily said...

Posted on Jun 15 2008 20:40 Think i saw a different film than some of the reviewers! I thought it was brilliant, it all felt very real and was so touching, and Ralf Little is gorgeous. I would highly recommend this film.

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ghg said...

Posted on Jun 15 2008 01:44 Very enjoyable film.

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ghg said...

Posted on Jun 15 2008 01:43 Enjoyable film.

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Anthony said...

Posted on Jun 12 2008 10:27 I've seen some rubbish, but never before have I left the cinema actually angry that I'll never get those two hours of my life back. This was cliched, hokey and self-absorbed. Rickety structure, no story to speak of, characters spewing torrents of cliche. It's a miracle this was ever read, let alone made...

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Kate said...

Posted on Jun 11 2008 14:15 Oh god, where to start with this film? It was terrible. The dialogue is poor and weak, the acting stiff and there are some parts of it that are so cringeworthy (the dance scene) that i wanted to pull out my eyelashes just so i didn't have to watch it anymore. The ending is naff and well, blah. I left this film feeling the worse for wear after spending £25 and wasting 2 hours of my life. Bloody awful, don't go and see this film, wait until ITV put it on on a sunday night as they are bound to.

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Prue said...

Posted on Jun 08 2008 23:52 A film to see alongside Caramel spanning Beirut to Balham. I enjoyed this bouquet of barbed wire that wraps itself around Wandsworth Common.No sign of the yummie mummies drinking fairtrade organic coffee down Bellevue or Northcote Road, whilst their 4WD suck up the ozone outside. More palatable than the usual romcoms coming out of the UK, this is more a Socks In The City look at perfect London couples going a tad awry.

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ruth black said...

Posted on Jun 05 2008 18:15 Terrible awful film. Ralf Little is so poor. Why A M Duff is doing this is beyond me. The worst film I've seen in years and years.

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