Waitress (2007)

Overall rating from 1 to 100: 72

O Masterpiece (95-100)
O Excellent (75-94)
X Good video rental (60-73)
O Merely OK (50-59)
O Pure mediocrity (30-49)
O Medusa: don’t watch (1-29)

Review by Jason Pyles / May 29, 2007

“Waitress” is a serious drama thinly disguised as a romantic comedy. This movie is simultaneously charming, funny and quite sad.

It reminded me of the ‘90s band, Toad the Wet Sprocket. Many of their songs sound upbeat and cheery until you listen closely to their weighty lyrics. “Waitress” serves us the same bittersweet messages in a fascinating, emotionally charged blend of external comedy and internal tragedy.

Jenna (Keri Russell) is a waitress at Joe’s Pie Diner, located in Mississippi. This forlorn waitress has one passion in life: baking pies. Inheriting her mother’s talents, Jenna can bake any kind of pie. Moreover, she creates many of her own culinary masterpieces, giving them peculiar, hyphenated names that pertain to her life’s current crises.

But Jenna has two major problems: She’s trapped in a marriage with an abusive husband whom she despises, and she’s pregnant with his baby. Jeremy Sisto plays her husband, Earl, a reprehensible maniac who fits the description of the doomed man described in the Dixie Chicks’ song, “Goodbye Earl.” Calling Earl “controlling” doesn’t even approach his dysfunction.

But Jenna has a support system, sort of. She has two, quirky waitress pals, an unlikely confidant in grumpy, old Joe (Andy Griffith), customer and owner of the restaurant, and best of all, a handsome obstetrician named Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). Despite their marital statuses, the doctor and patient toy with taking the relationship to “an unprofessional level.”

While watching, we, the audience, can feel that the couple’s love story and the forthcoming baby is a countdown to something more than just her water breaking. The tension builds, and we cringe and giggle with giddy anticipation. (Well, my wife did that — I don’t giggle or get giddy, let’s be honest.)

As I mentioned, watching “Waitress” is a unique experience. We laugh at these characters while we’re really feeling deep pity. In this way, “Waitress” is something special. It’s genuinely humorous, unusual and endearing. This is a definite date-night rental option, if not a matinee. But let me warn you: You’ll crave pie afterward.

Directed by Adrienne Shelly
Keri Russell / Nathan Fillion / Andy Griffith
107 min. Drama / Romance
MPAA: PG-13 (for sexual content, language and thematic elements)

Copyright 2007.
JP0101 : 341