MOVIE · 1963
A Child Is Waiting
Drama102 min
At a state institution for intellectually disabled children, Dr. Matthew Clark (Burt Lancaster) runs the school with strict, unsentimental discipline. Judy Garland is Jean Hansen, a former music teacher who joins the staff hoping to give her life direction and quickly recoils from Clark’s methods, believing the children need patience and closer personal attention instead. Their conflict narrows around 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, a boy abandoned by his divorced parents, as Jean grows deeply attached to him and increasingly determined to step in. John Cassavetes directs a drama rooted in the daily routines, tensions, and competing ideas of care inside the institution.
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