3 things about John Cassavetes’ A CHILD IS WAITING

A Child Is Waiting [1963]

1. They watch Reuben from behind a two-way mirror as he sits at a literacy machine. It’s lit like a police interrogation room.
2. “It’s not what you can do for these children, it’s what they can do for you.”
3. He finds himself pulled into a game of football.

You could argue that this is the most “conventional” film Cassavetes ever made, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful or affecting. Unique among his works, it’s a film that simply looks beautiful. In later years he was clearly uncomfortable with its visual gloss (courtesy cinematographer Joseph LaShelle, who also lensed Laura), but the tension between its controlled aesthetics and the story’s messiness and intensity really makes this film hum.

Garland is stunning–her best performance apart from The Wizard of Oz and A Star Is Born. But Lancaster and Rowlands are also superlative. And the way Cassavetes handles the child actors illustrates his deep gifts for working with young people.

It may have been released in 1963 but in its insistence on dignity for every human being, A Child Is Waiting is more timely than ever.