Waitress is a pastel-coloured fairytale about love and pie-baking. And fresh choices.
The stylized picture captures a place and time that don't really exist -- the setting is a diner in a sleepy little Southern town where a trio of hardworking women serve pie and keep their dreams to themselves.
Keri Russell stars as Jenna, a sweet-natured woman stuck in a lousy marriage to an oaf named Earl (Jeremy Sisto). He bullies her. Jenna creates and cooks most of the pies sold at the diner where she works, and from time to time in the movie she expresses her feelings by inventing a new pie.
When she discovers she's pregnant, for example, she invents something she calls I Don't Want Earl's Baby pie. Later, she bakes I Hate My Husband pie.
Jenna is surprised to find that her doctor has been replaced by a nervous newcomer, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). He is shy and handsome, and soon enough they are having an affair. (Russell and Fillion have terrific chemistry and their performances are really endearing.)
Jenna's diner colleagues are likewise engaged in romantic matters -- Becky (Cheryl Hines) has embarked on a relationship with a married man, and quiet little Dawn (Adrienne Shelly) has allowed a poetry-spouting nerd (Eddie Jemison) to talk her into marriage.
Guiding Jenna as she fumbles through her life is Old Joe, who owns the diner. Gruff and wise, Joe suggests to Jenna that she start fresh, advice that comes in handy as the story progresses. Joe is played by Andy Griffith; every scene he's in is an absolute treat.
Waitress telegraphs all its conclusions, but that's not really a complaint. The film, for all its sweetness and light, involves adultery and betrayal and poor choices, not to mention the feelings of a woman who really doesn't want to be pregnant -- and yet it's delightful. And often very funny.
Adrienne Shelly, who also wrote and directed, keeps a light touch throughout. The film skips along with an interesting mix of innocence and black humour.
It is Shelly's last film. The actress and filmmaker, who first became known as an actress through Hal Hartley's films Trust and The Unbelievable Truth, was murdered last year in New York. Sadly, Waitress is all about the unexpected bliss of being a mother, something Shelly had experienced. The toddler at the end of the film is her daughter.
(This film is rated PG)
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