Waitress

Ever since the Felicity days I've loved Keri Russell, so I was excited to see a screening of this in Santa Monica a week or so ago. I also have enjoyed Nathan Fillion in Serenity and the short-lived show Firefly that preceded that. But even with those expectations I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. It seems like in the past few years movies have become (or maybe they have always been) incredibly predictable. You go see a romantic comedy and it's almost like you can write the next line. I don't know about you, but I kind of like not knowing what is going to come next. That is part of the intrigue. The characters in this movie were diverse, funny, and completely endearing. In Waitress the dialogue is surprising and different. I really enjoyed the quirkiness of the characters. The crowd I viewed this movie with spanned many generations and it seemed to me that nearly everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves. I would recommend this to guys, girls, whoever...if you go in thinking it is going to be like every other movie you will really be happy when you leave the theater. I am definitely going to see it again when it is released this weekend.

Waitress could have turned into a middling mess, or something with characters that are hard to like (or, I should really note, sociopathic) if done in a more hard-lined Hollywood 'rom-com' assembly-line output (in 2007 those were still done). But Adrienne Shelley was more, for lack of a less precise word-choice, sweet-hearted about her characters. Even the villain of the story, and he is a villain who stands firmly in the way of our hero Keri Russell, her character's husband played by Jeremy Sisto, takes a break (if only in the tiniest moments) to not be a scumbag and show how he too can be vulnerable and afraid.

He surely shows his humanity the least - Sisto is scarily adept at making his Earl into a presence that's felt off camera too, if not more so - but Shelley had with Waitress a real chance to make a commercial picture and she took it. Prior to this she directed a couple of low budget independent films, and with this may have seemed to go 'mainstream'. The casting choices though are what count here especially; Russell carries so much screen presence that it's a wonder the lens doesn't make out with her before Nathan Fillion's Doctor does. And in small parts she gets things right too with Cheryl Hines as another waitress at the diner where Jenna serves and (especially, well, uniquely) makes pies, and Andy Griffith is the nice-but-demeaning water (he better get his two waters AND have time to read the horoscope!)

There are times when the movie goes into perhaps being too 'cute' or 'quirky'; this is from the same studio, Fox Searchlight, that would a few months later put out another story of an uncertain-in-her-life young woman, Juno, and there's points this dips into being a story that is so light it might float away (or another way to put it on the other extreme is that it's a more grounded version of Pushing Daisies). And oddly enough if there's one part of the movie that doesn't work for me it's ironically Shelley's own sub-plot, where she's another waitress courted by a stone-cold Nebbish with a capital N, and who have an argument in the diner which kind of grinds the movie to a halt.

But I can forgive (most of) that for how pure the relationship is between Russell and Fillion on screen; I wish I saw more of Nathan FIllion in movies, or at least in leads like this where he gets to develop a character and he shows us just enough to get to understand why he's doing the things he is. Or, on the reverse, not entirely know why, again this is from Jenna's point of view and that's crucial - we're seeing it through HER eyes, through the downtrodden hero we want to see get out of her loveless marriage. Though some parts are funny (scattered really), it's actually more of a drama with a light touch, and it feels harrowing at times in the scope of a low-middle class, blue collar existence: what does one do with the options presented, i.e. bad marriage, a baby on the way that may/may not be loved, and an affair that is hot but untenable?

Russell guides all of these conflicts of the character beautifully, leading up to a conclusion that is genuine and moving. To a further point, knowing about the horrible circumstances outside of the production - Shelley was murdered just before the film was released, though it was finished at the time - makes the very ending a real lump-in-the-throat moment (or just cry your eyes out, go for it). Waitress wears its emotions on its sleeve, but it carries its sincerity along both in the writing and performances, so it's a tough film to ever put down all that much.

I thought this was a wonderful feel good movie. It developed the characters well, especially Keri Russell's (Jenna). Thanks for making a fun movie that's not afraid to show real 'flawed' people in real situations!! I would recommend this movie to anyone who is sick of phony perfect main stream characters that really don't have any problems. The late Adrienne Shelly did a great job directing and acting in a supporting role. Cheryl Hines adds her great comedic flare! She's also good in Scrubs. I'm glad to see Keri acting in a main role again. She's such a naturally lovable personality on screen as she was in the TV show Felicity. This movie's perfectly fitting since she is currently pregnant! GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!

Some of my friends ask me why I watch so much trash. Why I spend so much time with stuff that doesn't seem important. Here's one reason why. Sometimes an apparently offhand movie, made for simple consumption will surprise you.

This is being celebrated as a quirky little comedy with serious overtones. According to the expected date formula, it ends happily.

But that's not what I saw. I saw a serious work, by a serious young artist that I would like to see more of. I saw Hartley's influence without knowing the background. If you don't know Hartley, he's a Canadian filmmaker that makes small films. They are called quirky by mainstream movie reviewers. What else are they to say? Its a catchall notion that signifies something that works by using unconventional means but the reviewer cannot say why.

Hartley's films are highly abstract. They are often called stylized, but that usually applies to theatrical conventions. Hartley abstracts in a different dimension of his own. Its abstraction, not simplification. And it usually works because he gets actors that know how to collaborate in it well.

One of these was Adrianne Shelly. A redhead.

She took that level and type of abstraction and did something Hartley couldn't do: she folded her own life into the thing. The story is about her, her marriage and pregnancy. It was written while she was pregnant and at the end features her own daughter as the result of that pregnancy. She writes, directs and acts, but the role she has chosen is not the central one. The narrative stance is as the observer. All the abstraction is done on the observer side.

Its amazingly effective and consistent.

One device that works rather well is how her own approach to the film deviates from the norm. (The norm here is set in the first few minutes as a date movie.) She folds that into how her character deviates from the norm in designing and making pies. The diner is conflated into a theater, with poetry seductions, affairs, a wedding.

Its where we see the small, important and original work of Hartley blossom.

(The filmmaker was murdered before seeing the film in theaters.)

See this. Its good, even the use of Andy Griffith. And the small (one scene) but important role of the other redhead.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Waitress is a great, funny movie starring Keri Russell as a small-town waitress who discovers that she's pregnant just as she's planning to leave her jealous, controlling husband. The typical Hollywood approach for a movie like this would be to film it in ultra-serious "movie of the week" mode, but writer/director/actor Adrienne Shelly chose to tell her story in an extremely stylized, almost fairy-tale style. The stylized dialogue, super-sharp photography and primary-color palette even reminded me of the movies of Joel & Ethan Coen at times, but in the end, this movie packs an emotional punch that the Coen brothers have rarely achieved. It also features a brilliant (and brilliantly human) performance by Andy Griffith as the horny old geezer who owns the diner where Russell works.

This movie has a good chance at achieving a Little Miss Sunshine-style breakout this year. It's funny, quirky and honestly touching. Waitress stands as a fine legacy for Adrienne Shelly, but if things had been different, it could have been the movie that launched her into the mainstream instead of her swan song.