Garland is Jean Hansen, a woman still searching for a purpose in her life in her late 30s. She finds it at the Crawthorne State Training Institute in New Jersey. Despite having no training in nursing, teaching or working with developmentally challenged youngsters she rapidly bonds with the children, and autistic Reuben Widdicombe (Bruce Ritchey) in particular. The 10 year old has been abandoned by his parents and looks to Jean for the love and attention he's missing in his life. But the institute's director Dr Matthew Clark (Burt Lancaster) believes tough love is the best way to prepare Reuben for life and forbids Miss Hansen from giving the boy special attention.
I never realised just how big, liquid and expressive are Garland's eyes until I watched her use them to convey feelings of love and compassion and pain and sadness toward Reuben. For an actress best known for her expansive theatricality Garland is impressively low key here, recognising that less is considerably more in portraying her character's state of mind. At times she appears so fragile she might shatter into a million pieces, while at others there's a steely determination not to be ground down by circumstances.
Garland and Lancaster are an unlikely but effective pairing, with Burt keeping a lid on his scenery chewing tendency, and there's excellent support from13 year old Ritchey and Cassavetes' wife Gena Rowlands as Reuben's missing mother.
If we overlook the datedness of the institute's philosophy toward its students, A CHILD IS WAITING holds up well as a sincere, sympathetic and non-patronising effort to explore a serious social issue. The story's continuing impact is due in large part to Garland's astonishing performance and it left me wondering just how great a character actress she could have become had she lived.
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