Film Review: Waitress

It is impossible to talk about this movie without first talking about the writer/director, who also acted as supporting cast in Waitress, Adrienne Shelly. Perhaps the most poignant thing about this wonderful little film is that she never made it to the premiere, or to see the crowds in the theaters laughing and crying through her labor of love. In early November of last year, just a few months before the movie’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Adrienne was murdered in her office in New York. In honor of her life, her husband founded  The Adrienne Shelly Foundation to support women filmmakers. I highly recommend visiting the site to see the remarkable work she will be supporting in her absence.

Another legacy she will leave will be the beauty of her final film, Waitress, which is out in theaters now and stars Keri Russell, best known as Felicity from the hit series on the WB. Keri and the supporting cast members are all amazing, and the film stands as a testament to the human spirit in ways I could only understand after watching. The film is a lighthearted comedy, but its quirkiness betrays a deep universality and a poignant look at the nature of love.

At Joe’s Diner, a small pie shop in Small Town USA, Jenna (Keri Russell) is the resident pie genius, although while her genius is acknowledged, it is not rewarded and her boss is constantly yelling at her to work harder and go serve customers. The only person who seems to appreciate the pies as they should be is Joe himself, a senile old man who sits in the same booth each day and tries to act grumpy – although we can tell he’s a softie underneath.

She works each day with her two best friends, played by actresses Cheryl Hines and Adrienne Shelly – both spectacular performances, and besides working, they talk about life – mostly about men, and about Jenna’s dreams of escaping and opening up her own pie shop somewhere else. She’s been hiding money from her jerk of a husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto) so that one day she can escape. That is, until she is inconveniently pregnant – the one day, she says, that she drank a little too much wine and gave into his sexual advances. Her pregnancy leads her to another man – her gynecologist (Nathan Fillian, who is new to town and terribly awkward…but also delightfully charming.

Over the course of the film, Jenna makes creative pies influenced by her state of mind like I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie and writes letters to her unborn baby which narrate her character’s gradual growing confidence in spite of her daily obstacles. We root for her risky affair, while at the same time Sisto does an amazing job of showing the humanity in Earl so that no matter how awful he is, we sort of pity him, too. Most of all, we watch the way that Jenna takes hold of a room, but doesn’t know it – and we admire the friendships that hold her and the other women together in a seemingly mundane existence.

With it’s odd pie-creating interludes, and the somewhat reckless way that Jenna and her doctor are drawn together, Waitress is as much about ingredients as Jenna’s pies – and between great writing and fantastic subtle performances, this one could win any Greatest Pie Competition around.