Dir. Adrienne Shelley, US, 2007, 108 mins
Cast: Keri Russell, Jeremy Sisto, Cheryl Hines, Nathan Fillion
Review by Carol Allen
This is the third and final film from director/actress Adrienne Shelley, who was found murdered in her Manhattan office in November 2006, shortly after Waitress was completed – a fact which tinges this delightful film with sadness as it is clear from this that she was a talented writer/director who would have gone on to make many more.
Jenna (Russell) is a waitress in a diner, whose speciality is creating delicious pies – a talent which she dreams will win her the $25,000 pie contest to top up her secret escape fund and enable her to get away from her controlling husband Earl (Sisto) and the constraints of small town life. That dream is shattered when she finds herself pregnant, though interestingly, despite her desire for freedom and her fears about the responsibilities of motherhood and its effect on her life, the idea of abortion never enters her head. And things take an unexpected twist when she finds herself drawn to her handsome and also married obstetrician, Dr Pomatter (Fillion).
Russell as Jenna is a very likeable central character, being both kind and charming but with a tart and tough edge to her. Life in the diner is enlivened by Jenna’s friendship with her fellow waitresses, down to earth Becky (Cheryl Hines) and mousy Dawn – a sweetly comic performance by Shelley herself – who is desperately seeking a boyfriend. It’s a three-way friendship that is very real, accurately capturing the flavour of true girl talk. Although Dr Pomatter (Jenna always uses his title) is a bit of a wet drip though awkwardly sexy with it, the stuttering relationship and sudden flaring passion between him and Jenna is delightfully comic and rings true. Old Joe (Andy Griffith), the crusty owner of the diner, has a definite soft spot for Jemma and her pies and even Earl, who’s a real whinging, bullying pain in the bottom, whom you want to slap, isn’t evil. He’s too needy and pathetic for that.
The film is very well written with a gentle wit and is an original and perceptive comedy about serious issues – motherhood, limited options, the restrictions and traps of relationships and small town life. It also has a nice sense of style, being intermittently punctured by Jenna musing to camera about her latest pie creations, to which she gives whimsical names such as the “I Hate my Husband Pie” (bittersweet chocolate drowned in caramel) and the “Earl Murders Me Because I’m Having an Affair Pie” (smashed blackberries and raspberries in a chocolate crust), while the pies themselves make it a bit of a foodie movie – they look delicious. Ms Shelley was eight months pregnant when she started writing the film and she finished it after her baby was born, which perhaps explains why her light, ironic touch veers a little towards dewy-eyed sentimentality over the joys of motherhood towards the end, but by then you’re so in love with the characters, particularly Jenna, that it really doesn’t matter.
