Waitress

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

First of all, I’d like to give a little backgrounder on Jo and I actually going to Gateway to catch “Waitress”. She had heard that this was a good indie-type of flick with Keri Russell of “Felicity” fame was the star. I was cool with going to Cubao to catch it since apparently the movie was only being shown in Gateway. When we lined up at the cinema, the video board called it an “exclusive” (complete with quotation marks) so we already found that funny. Then when we were handed our tickets, the title that was printed out said “D’ Waitress”. Jo said “It isn’t even titled ‘The Waitress’, just ‘Waitress’!” I quickly responded that what this ticket proves is that we are still in d’ Philippines.

Ok, now for the film itself. Jenna (Russell) is a small-time waitress at a pie diner. She learned how to bake pies from her own mother and always seems to come up with new and exciting pie recipes through the emotions she’s feeling at the time. Unfortunately, Jenna is also married to the most controlling, domineering, pushy chauvinist on the planet, a blowhard named Earl (Jeremy Sisto). When Earl got Jenna drunk one night, he also got her pregnant. Jenna goes to her gynecologist but is surprised that she’s now semi-retired and her practice has been taken over by Dr. Jim Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). For all of Pomatter’s quirks and nervous chatter, Jenna is strongly attracted to him and they have an affair (despite both of them being married). Meanwhile, Jenna’s fellow waitresses Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (writer/director Adrienne Shelly) also look for love and get it in varying degrees.

As expected for a small, independent film, you were going to get a lot of dialogue, focus on character, and no gigantic explosions or special effects. Trust me, that’s a good thing. “Waitress” was so well written by writer/director/actress Adrienne Shelly that I sometimes wonder why we don’t get more movies like it. The acting was brilliant, the script superb, and the story was rich. Every actor was cast perfectly from Russell and Sisto to the smaller parts of Ogie (Eddie Jemison) and Old Joe (a great surprise seeing Andy “Matlock” Griffith here). It was easy to hate Earl for the way he bludgeoned Jenna’s ego, and you could easily sympathize with Jenna’s desire to be free of him and to truly be appreciated.

SPOILER ALERT!!! I guess that the most unfortunate thing about “Waitress” was the fate that Shelly met right before it was released. She was murdered by an Ecuadorian illegal immigrant and construction worker who got into an argument with Shelly in her Manhattan apartment. A seemingly random act of violence has taken somebody whom I just found out to be a brilliant storyteller and actress. Though I never saw any of her other films, for all intents and purposes, Shelly was a strong voice in the independent film scene and was quite popular. Thus, with “Waitress”, we are left with one last look at a person’s true masterpiece, something she literally finished before she was taken from the earth.

Again, I’m all for the noise and fury that movies like the “Rush Hour” series and “Transformers” provide as far as adrenaline rushes go. But, there is, I believe, always room for quieter, more introspective pieces such as “Waitress”. Even though Keri Russell is now years away from her star-launching turn as the cute, frizzy-haired Felicity on TV, she seems to be quite comfortable in being more of an actress with substance nowadays. Here’s hoping that “Waitress” won’t merely be a blip on her path towards real acting greatness. I personally think that the mouth-watering pies that were constantly onscreen also helped me like this film even more. Then again, that’s just me.