Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Waiting (1990)

play
clip The baby is not mine

Original classification rating: M. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

In the kitchen after dinner, Therese’s teenage daughter Rosie (Noga Bernstein) asks Clare (Noni Hazlehurst) if she became pregnant with ‘a bottle’ (using artificial insemination). Clare avoids directly answering. The girl then touches a raw nerve when she suggests Clare is going to miss her baby.

Curator’s notes

This is the first major sign that the birth everyone has gathered for may not go according to script. From her troubled reactions to the girl’s innocent questions, it is clear that surrogate mother-to-be Clare is far less comfortable with the notion of handing over the baby than those around her realise.