Waitress

Jenna makes a new pie every day of the week, and not just your average apple or peach offerings. Rather, marshmallow creme, bitter/dark chocolate and banana, pumpkin spice, and various crushed berry concoctions. She' s a pie wizard, delighting the folks at Joe's diner, somewhere in an unnamed Deep South locale. She puts Mother Butler to shame with her ingenuity. Her creations inspire long time regulars to close their eyes as they describe the euphoria of her work, enough so for them to sometimes tell her to skip the main course and just bring out the damned pie. Jenna (Keri Russell) is also a profoundly depressed young woman. But she doesn't really mind being a waitress. She has two close confidants at her side as co-workers: Becky and Dawn (Cheryl Hines & Adrienne Shelley), as well as a randy old coot (Andy Griffith, absolutely terrific) whose cantankerousness brightens her days, and she gets to make those pies. 

"You should open your own pie shop," saith her co-workers more than once. That doesn't seem likely in Jenna's future. Her depression is deep, her self-esteem nil. Her lout of a husband, Earl (Jeremy Sisto) is a lunkhead extraordinare. His raging jealousy prevents her from owning her own car, demands her tip money every night as he picks her up, and begs for constant re-affirmations of his manhood. He says her pies are "alright." Jenna sighs defeat and is resigned to her fate. Then one day, she discovers she is pregnant. This is not good news. The child, she feels, has just sealed her fate. She can now never escape her sentence with Earl, who upon learning the news, insists that Jenna promise that she'll never love the baby more than him. Her co-workers are far more excited, and give her a book which encourages new mothers to write letters to their unborn. 

In voiceover, Jenna composes brutally honest thoughts to her future offspring, the sort of expressions that reek of hopelessness, regret, and bitterness. These are not mushy love letters. The new local gynecologist, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion), is a sweet soul who obviously has an eye for his new patient. Jenna is embarrassed and puzzled by his demeanor. He compliments her! He loves her pies! Against their better judgment, they have an affair, despite his also being married. WAITRESS is a film that folks used to call "sleepers": small films of which no one expecting much, that really deliver. The raw materials for a basic cable potboiler are all there, but writer/director/actor Shelley instead creates a surprisingly sharp look at the social order. The expectations of individuals as mates, employees, friends, are all observed with a keen eye, sharp tongue, and wounded heart. One could easily say that WAITRESS is "bittersweet", but that is too easy, and not quite accurate. 

There's more bitterness than sweetness, and it feels real. I can't recall a film that so unflinchingly details a woman's loathing for her upcoming pregnancy. In another movie, the pregnancy would be Jenna's salvation from her bleak life. Instead, it only reminds her of Earl, especially since the whole mess began six weeks ago after he got her drunk. Idiot. The film also passes no judgment on the illicit activities of Jenna and Pomatter. But it doesn't bathe their liasions in any illusion, either. Both characters are mired in loveless unions, but the fault may not lie entirely with their mates. Shelley's script allows Jenna and Pomatter to be deeply flawed, sometimes selfish people. Their spouses, the aforementioned Earl, upon closer inspection, is simply a wildly insecure man without a shred of self-esteem himself. His asinine behavior makes the audience hiss and rally to Jenna's defense, but there are moments when his persona drops, and we see the hurt in his eyes. Pomatter's wife is a resident MD, who is seen only once, but obviously consumed in self-love and likely prone to overpower her husband. Jenna's co-workers are also a bit lost. 

Becky has a (discussed but never seen) much older invalid husband at home who has lost his memory. Dawn places personal ads and then only allows five minutes for her dates so she doesn't get stuck if she doesn't like them. But their commiseration strengthens their resolves. And then there are those pies...... Shelley, an actress perhaps best known for her work with Hal Hartley (her turn in TRUST is my favorite), was murdered just months before the film's release, a stunning tragedy that indeed casts the film in a different light than would have otherwise been seen without such prior knowledge. To have such an achievement as a maiden voyage only makes things sadder. We have been denied more thoughtful analyses, more stories with the appropriate bite. At the end, Jenna has her baby. Several events occur after this point and I'm no spoiler this time. But the ending was more than satisfactory to me. It all made sense, and I shared in the bitterSWEET triumph. Yes. You see that? I think, for once in Jenna's life, the sweetness won out. (part one of cinematic gustatory trilogy)