Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah and Kalki Koechlin had teamed up for the first time in That Girl In Yellow Boots, a noir drama about a girl searching for her missing father in the mean streets of Mumbai and if you thought that was a good movie, then Waiting should definitely be on your 'must watch' list this weekend.

Shiv Natraja (Naseeruddin Shah) visits a hospital as a part of his regular routine as his wife Pankaja has been in a comatose state for eight months now. Doctor Nirupam Malhotra (Rajat Kapoor) has been trying to convince him that it's time to let her go but Shiv's belief in medical miracle is unwavering. One day, he meets Tara Deshpande, a newly-wed, whose husband meets with a fatal accident and is admitted in the same hospital. Grief forms an unlikely friendship between the two. But there are important decisions to take. Will they be able to do it?

Considering the grim subject and setting - the intensive care unit of a luxe hospital in Kochi -Waiting is a surprisingly pleasant and positive film. Anu Menon's second directorial venture has the same lightness of touch and natural storytelling style she brought to her debut in 2012's London, Paris, New York starring Aditi Rao Hydari and Ali Zafar. Yet this film is as different from her first as night is from day and Tara is from Shiv.

Tara (Kalki Koechlin) and Rajat (Arjun Mathur) are newly weds whose life seems picture perfect until Rajat meets with a deadly car accident. With a severe head injury, Rajat goes into coma, leaving his wife Tara with some big decisions of their future. In Cochin's state of the art hospital, Tara meets Shiv (Naseeruddin Shah), whose wife too, is in a comatose state since eight months. After a marriage spanning over 40 years, Shiv is determined to wait for his wife to get back to life.

Away from the sprawling high-rises in metro cities, there lays a place called 'Real India'. Have we ever thought of the lengths people could go to save the ones they love? Certainly not! With baseless erotic entertainers and no brainers minting money with their old wine in new bottle techniques, filmmakers have left behind the true essence of India in cinema. Gone are the days when cinema used to be the medium of portraying real emotions.

Tara (Kalki Koechlin) is a fiercely independent woman whose life turns upside down after her husband Rajat (Arjun Mathur) meets with an accident. At the hospital, she meets Shiv, an elderly man whose wife of 40 years has been in the coma for eight months. The two strike an unlikely friendship that helps them cope with their grief.

"What is true love," Kalki Koechlin's Tara Kapoor asks Naseeruddin Shah's Professor Shiv Natraj. The question might seem juvenile, but in their situation, the answer will decide their lives. Is it removing your wife's ventilator support as doctors say she can't come back to life after eight months in coma or is it not letting doctors operate on your husband because he'll end up dependent forever - a choice he wouldn't like?

An understated and superbly acted film about loss, grief and the human need to cling on to the physical presence of loved ones, Anu Menon's Waiting is at once heart-wrenching and uplifting. The plot is wafer-thin because much of it hinges on episodic ruminations on love and death, but the restraint and lightness that the director brings to bear upon the solemn theme of life's impermanence gives the film its edge.

This is an apt one-line description of a film about life, lasting love and impending loss which explores a zone Bollywood doesn't bother with. Which is itself so refreshing that you want to champion the attempt, as well some of the outcome, even if it doesn't hit all the marks, all the way.