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Review #464 of 365
Movie Review of Waitress (2007) [PG-13] 107 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $12.50
Where Viewed: AMC Westminster Promenade 24, Westminster, CO
When 1st Seen: 29 May 2007
Time: 7:35 p.m.
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
DVD Release Date: 27 November 2007 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Directed by: Adrienne Shelly (The Shadows of Bob and Zelda)
Written by: Adrienne Shelly (The Shadows of Bob and Zelda)
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Keri Russell (Mission: Impossible III) • Nathan Fillion (Slither) • Cheryl Hines (Keeping Up with the Steins) • Jeremy Sisto (Unknown) • Andy Griffith ("Diagnosis Murder") • Adrienne Shelly (Factotum) • Eddie Jemison (Ocean's Twelve)
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Recipie: This Movie Is Tough to Swallow Pie
Take an Oreo® Cookie crust and saturate it with a layer of melted bittersweet chocolate. After the chocolate hardens, put down a layer of unchopped Brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, and hazel nuts and saturate with a layer of unsweetened melted chocolate. Pour on a layer of fresh peanut brittle and allow to solidify. Douse with a can of frozen lemonade spreading the slurry thinly over the peanut brittle. Freeze solid. Serve frozen with a hammer and chisel.
Now deceased, writer, director, actress Adrienne Shelly poured just about every possible bittersweet and sour dimension a woman might face when trapped in a bad marriage with a horribly abusive (physically and mentally) husband in a small town where everyone knows your business; or, at least they should, into her film, Waitress. As described above, it is a movie that, while filled with sweet, sour, and bitter tastes that sound good at first, really is emotionally exhausting to get through in the end. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. It does have a happy ending. There is demonstrable growth in many of the characters. The women are all empowered to the extent that their subculture affords which is limited by the extent of their world experience (which is pretty limited). The film, told through the eyes of Jenna (Kerri Russell, who's come a long, long way as an actress since her days on "Felicity" by the way), a small town waitress at Joe's Pie Diner.
(Click Still Photo of Kerri Russell to Purchase)
The diner only serves pie. Over 30 varieties a day, and the term pie goes from the traditional cherry to a mixed breakfast quiche-like pie to a new pie that Jenna invents each day with a creative name just like the ones she used to back with her momma when she was a child. Jenna's co-workers are Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly). Their boss is Cal (Lew Temple), and Joe of Joe's diner is Andy Griffith in a charming tribute performance that should be lauded as the capstone of his career. Jenna's abusive husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto) gets a rival for Jenna's love and affection in the form of Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion) when Jenna becomes pregnant and the new doctor in town takes over her check-ups.
One of the things that dawned on me early on in the film is how much I really liked every single character, even the awful and misguided nearly evil Earl, even the annoying Ogie from Oklahoma (Eddie Jemison) who refuses to give up his either pursuit of Dawn or his spontaneous, off beat, love poems to her. Part of this was due to the depth of the character development achieved by great writing and part was due the subtle acting. Inasmuch as this is a borderline ensemble cast film, with the focus being on Jenna's life, the other characters that support the story and its other lines, are so real. Each one, even Cal who operates most of the time in five-word sentences has a lot going on beneath his rugged diner cook exterior. Meanwhile, the pies are the secret ingredient to the movie. Not so secret in the sense of being hidden. No, Jenna gives us a new recipe every time she faces a major problem in her life—at least once a day. The pies are the solution and the resolution. The pies are also the most delicious creations anyone in town has ever tasted. Everyone says so. They are the secret ingredient in this film, though because they serve as the metaphors as well for the way life works or doesn't work. The pies explain it all.
One of the things that dawned on me early on in the film is how much I really liked every single character, even the awful and misguided nearly evil Earl, even the annoying Ogie from Oklahoma (Eddie Jemison) who refuses to give up his either pursuit of Dawn or his spontaneous, off beat, love poems to her. Part of this was due to the depth of the character development achieved by great writing and part was due the subtle acting. Inasmuch as this is a borderline ensemble cast film, with the focus being on Jenna's life, the other characters that support the story and its other lines, are so real. Each one, even Cal who operates most of the time in five-word sentences has a lot going on beneath his rugged diner cook exterior. Meanwhile, the pies are the secret ingredient to the movie. Not so secret in the sense of being hidden. No, Jenna gives us a new recipe every time she faces a major problem in her life—at least once a day. The pies are the solution and the resolution. The pies are also the most delicious creations anyone in town has ever tasted. Everyone says so. They are the secret ingredient in this film, though because they serve as the metaphors as well for the way life works or doesn't work. The pies explain it all.
"Adrienne Shelly's final legacy…a bittersweet pill to swallow, but a good one nonetheless…"
So, I called this film in my pie recipe above, "hard to swallow". And it is. The expression is a loaded one, so I choose the meaning, not that it's not believable, but that it's like a bitter pill that you're told will make you better. So, you put it in a spoonful of sugar just like Mary Poppins suggested and try to swallow it. The film has great performances, great characters, and a good story (a bit predictable) all of which are sweet. The bitter part comes from two other ingredients. First, it's tough to watch the physical and mental abuse of Jenna at the hand and mouth of Earl. It's also tough to recognize that there are probably 1000s and 1000s of wives in the USA with husbands just like him. Archaic in their thinking, their marriage is all about them and their needs. When Earl finally finds out that Jenna is pregnant with his baby, which she only finally tells him to prevent the beating of her life, he makes her promise never to love it more than she loves him. He's so self-indulgent he doesn't even realize that she stopped loving him years and years ago and just repeats what he tells her to say to save her hide and sanity. I found myself wanting to leap onto the screen and teach him a lesson or two about how to treat other human beings. He's a perfectly horrid individual. One of the failings of the film, probably, is that we never know why he's the way he is, nor what drew Jenna to him in the first place. Which brings us to the second bitter ingredient. It's tough to understand Jenna's powerlessness over her situation. Why doesn't she just leave, move out, move in with her friends? How is it that he has such control over her? How has he so disempowered her? Why does she put up with his nonsense? Fear? Lack of financial independence? Morals? Ethics? What? She does eventually try to escape, but he catches her and puts her back in his trophy case. She concedes. She never brings the police in when he physically abuses her. Worst of all, he gets her pregnant the night of his birthday when they had both had too much to drink. And she doesn't want the baby. She, in fact, really doesn't like the baby. She spends most of the pregnancy resenting the baby and wishing she were not pregnant. That is the most bitter thing to watch of all. How horrible it would be to be carrying a baby you loathe from its conception. One would wonder how it could turn out well if the mother carrying it felt such terrible things about it. It's like putting a pie in an oven and putting the oven in a cement mixer and expecting the pie to turn out well. Watching the film is like having pie after bitter pie thrown in your face. And that is sort of what Jenna's life is like. Just when there might be hope for success, she gets thrown another pie.
While these parts are hard to swallow, and maybe the entire film is, because these are not cheerful, happy topics the film is still a good one, and well-worth seeing. Sometimes, it's good to see things that make you sad and wonder and contemplate. We can learn, perhaps, more from a film like Waitress than those that are like a nice slice of homogeneous pumpkin pie with a spot of whipped cream and a perfect flaky crust. How realistic is that when used as a metaphor for real life?
As for Adrienne Shelly, her murder was a tragedy. Her career was ended far too soon. She was breaking down the all boys club that is the world of Hollywood film directors (read my rant on this topic and help to do something about it). This film should stick with all of us as a her final legacy on the empowerment of women who may not know they have options in the world other than to stay with abusive men in bad relationships that stifle their creativity and dehumanize them.
While these parts are hard to swallow, and maybe the entire film is, because these are not cheerful, happy topics the film is still a good one, and well-worth seeing. Sometimes, it's good to see things that make you sad and wonder and contemplate. We can learn, perhaps, more from a film like Waitress than those that are like a nice slice of homogeneous pumpkin pie with a spot of whipped cream and a perfect flaky crust. How realistic is that when used as a metaphor for real life?
As for Adrienne Shelly, her murder was a tragedy. Her career was ended far too soon. She was breaking down the all boys club that is the world of Hollywood film directors (read my rant on this topic and help to do something about it). This film should stick with all of us as a her final legacy on the empowerment of women who may not know they have options in the world other than to stay with abusive men in bad relationships that stifle their creativity and dehumanize them.
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Other Projects Featuring Waitress (2007)
Cast Members
Keri Russell
• Nathan Fillion • Cheryl HinesJeremy Sisto
• Andy Griffith • Adrienne ShellyEddie Jemison
• Writer / Director
Adrienne Shelly
Waitress (2007) Review-lite [150-word cap]
A bittersweet piece of pie, Adrienne Shelly's final film, Waitress, which she wrote, directed, and starred in, stirs up the emotions as we watch an abused, pregnant wife, Jenna (Kerri Russell), confront her choices to stay with Earl (Jeremy Sisto), after all these years. Stellar supporting performances from Shelly, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, and the rascal Andy Griffith, enlivens this film making it a sweet and sour film, yet excellent tribute to Shelly's career cut too short by her tragic murder in November of 2006. (
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