The Waiting Room - Movie Review

It all happens in Tenmalai, a godforsaken town somewhere in South India. Conveniently, there's just one train that passes by this town's railway station. And it's always late.

The Waiting Room
U/A; Thriller
Dir: Maneej Premnath
Cast: Raj Singh Chaudhary, Radhika Apte, Sandeep Kulkarni, Prateeksha Lonkar
''

It all happens in Tenmalai, a godforsaken town somewhere in South India. Conveniently, there's just one train that passes by this town's railway station. And it's always late.

There are no hotels nearby (only a hooch shop). Rickshaws apparently just bring you there, they don't take you into the village. There's a serial killer on the loose. Really, how convenient!

There are but four significant characters that are in the frame almost throughout. Tina (Apte), the young girl who's petrified of the nosey parker (Chaudhary) who's unwittingly doing everything the serial killer would.

A Gujarati couple (Kulkarni and Lonkar are both Maharashtrians; brilliant effort here) behave awfully suspicious but the finger of suspicion neve points in their direction.

Radhika has one standard expression. Raj is every bit the creep one would expect him to be but you wonder why he's written that way. Again, reeks of convenience.

The suspense falls flat because there is only one suspect (who's not the killer, BTW) and because there's a rushed ending.
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The characters play out possible situations in their heads (a device that leaves more of an impact than the actual proceedings).

But if you're willing to look past all that, the bigger disappointment comes in the threadbare plot and the very weak climax.

Director Maneej Premnath tries his best but the screenplay lets him down. The flick takes you to a place we really have no use for, given how used we are to not waiting.

Remarkably, that's one of the fresh things worth watching this film for. My compliments to the sound department, though. Their work is probably the film's only saving grace (the camerawork's fine, too).

The film works on the principle that fear is what drives most people to behave irrationally. What was this film afraid of? It could have been so much better but ends up being quite simply... convenient.