I had high hopes, buoyed by its 89% at Rotten Tomatoes and its highly amusing trailer. The story concerns Jenna (Kerri Russell) who is a small southern town waitress working at a pie shop. In one of the early scenes of the film, Jenna discovers that she is pregnant and the news disappoints her. She’s in an unhappy marriage with Earl, a thuggish lout, and is making plans to leave him. The impending baby throws a rattle into those plans.
Her only friends are her two coworkers, Becky and Dawn, who support and encourage her. They spend a lot of time discussing their two failing marriages (Becky’s husband has been an invalid for years) and failing dating relationships (Dawn cannot find a man).
Jenna has one old customer who owns the pie shop and is a rascally curmudgeon named Joe (Andy Griffith). He plays the wise old man and is very insightful as he alternately barks orders, and flirts with Jenna. He sees something special in her.
When pregnant Jenna makes her first appointment to see her obstetrician (the same small town doctor who delivered her) she discovers that her obstetrician has retired and a new, young handsome doctor, Dr. Pomatter, has taken her place. There is chemistry between them. Because they are both married, they have initial misgivings. But this is Hollywood after all so they consummate their affair and keep their relationship as clandestine as possible throughout the rest of the film.
The film ends with her baby’s birth which triggers a few decisions in Jenna’s life. She decides to leave her husband and to break off her affair with the doctor. Joe dies and leaves a lot of money to Jenna which she uses to buy the diner and name it Lulu’s after her new baby daughter.
Three things I liked:
1. There is an underlying Pro-Life element to the picture. She briefly considers an abortion, but rejects it almost immediately. Although she laments her pregnancy throughout the film, her daughter’s birth proves transformative.
2. The voice-overs. It is intrinsically difficult in a film to give voice to the character’s thoughts. But Waitress has a useful method of accomplishing that here. Whenever Jenna feels an intense emotion she channels it into a pie. Thus the names of the pies she devises are: “Screaming-Crying Baby in the Middle of the Night Pie,” "I Hate My Husband Pie," and "I Can't Handle an Affair Because It's Wrong & I Don't Want Earl to Kill Me Pie" etc. That makes a nice (and hunger-inducing) method to give the viewer access into Jenna’s mind as she’s sorting through these emotions.
3. The cast. I really liked the casting of Andy Griffith and Kerri Russell. Griffith is such an icon that he’s very hard not to like, even though he plays somewhat of a unctuous scoundrel. Russell is luminescent, a future star.
Three things I didn’t like:
1. It is a very white movie. This is not something I typically notice, but there are no blacks in the film. Not what I would expect from a small southern town.
Her only friends are her two coworkers, Becky and Dawn, who support and encourage her. They spend a lot of time discussing their two failing marriages (Becky’s husband has been an invalid for years) and failing dating relationships (Dawn cannot find a man).
Jenna has one old customer who owns the pie shop and is a rascally curmudgeon named Joe (Andy Griffith). He plays the wise old man and is very insightful as he alternately barks orders, and flirts with Jenna. He sees something special in her.
When pregnant Jenna makes her first appointment to see her obstetrician (the same small town doctor who delivered her) she discovers that her obstetrician has retired and a new, young handsome doctor, Dr. Pomatter, has taken her place. There is chemistry between them. Because they are both married, they have initial misgivings. But this is Hollywood after all so they consummate their affair and keep their relationship as clandestine as possible throughout the rest of the film.
The film ends with her baby’s birth which triggers a few decisions in Jenna’s life. She decides to leave her husband and to break off her affair with the doctor. Joe dies and leaves a lot of money to Jenna which she uses to buy the diner and name it Lulu’s after her new baby daughter.
Three things I liked:
1. There is an underlying Pro-Life element to the picture. She briefly considers an abortion, but rejects it almost immediately. Although she laments her pregnancy throughout the film, her daughter’s birth proves transformative.
2. The voice-overs. It is intrinsically difficult in a film to give voice to the character’s thoughts. But Waitress has a useful method of accomplishing that here. Whenever Jenna feels an intense emotion she channels it into a pie. Thus the names of the pies she devises are: “Screaming-Crying Baby in the Middle of the Night Pie,” "I Hate My Husband Pie," and "I Can't Handle an Affair Because It's Wrong & I Don't Want Earl to Kill Me Pie" etc. That makes a nice (and hunger-inducing) method to give the viewer access into Jenna’s mind as she’s sorting through these emotions.
3. The cast. I really liked the casting of Andy Griffith and Kerri Russell. Griffith is such an icon that he’s very hard not to like, even though he plays somewhat of a unctuous scoundrel. Russell is luminescent, a future star.
Three things I didn’t like:
1. It is a very white movie. This is not something I typically notice, but there are no blacks in the film. Not what I would expect from a small southern town.
2. The film's inconsistency in mood. Waitress crosses the fine line between reaching for magical realism and simply being over the top. When Jenna finds happiness in her relationship with Dr. Pomatter, she walks through several scenes with a grin (intentionally) pasted on her face. I think the director was trying to depict the fantasy world that a clandestine relationship provides, but it looked a little over the top. More cheesy than anything else.
3. The portrayal of affairs. But my primary objection to the film is its portrayal of the various affairs ongoing throughout the film. Becky, Jenna’s friend, articulates the sentiment I find most offensive. She’s married to a man who is now an invalid and has been out of his mind for several years. To her shock, Jenna discovers that Becky has been having an affair with the boss of their diner, Cal. Jenna asks Becky if she loves him. Becky replies “Love Cal? I don’t know, but I love IT! I love having someone to look pretty for. I love waking up and there’s something to look forward to. Something fun, and sneaky, and sexy!”
Although I don’t doubt that the attendant emotional feelings to an affair can be as intoxicating as the relationship itself, the film doesn’t explore the problems and consequences of the affair. In both cases, with Becky and Cal, Jenna and Dr. Pomatter, they each end up happy and regret free. Even when Jenna breaks off the affair with Dr. Pomatter, she says “I could never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me.”
For a lighthearted comedy that is billed as “uplifiting” and supposedly depicts reality, this depiction of affairs was a glaring oversight. In Waitress, affairs are therapeutic and, at times, necessary to allow a person to realize their full potential. I simply reject that perspective.
For these reasons I didn’t enjoy the film and would not recommend it.
***I should note that the writer and director of this film, Adrienne Shelly, was brutally murdered shortly after its completion. Obviously a tragic event.
3. The portrayal of affairs. But my primary objection to the film is its portrayal of the various affairs ongoing throughout the film. Becky, Jenna’s friend, articulates the sentiment I find most offensive. She’s married to a man who is now an invalid and has been out of his mind for several years. To her shock, Jenna discovers that Becky has been having an affair with the boss of their diner, Cal. Jenna asks Becky if she loves him. Becky replies “Love Cal? I don’t know, but I love IT! I love having someone to look pretty for. I love waking up and there’s something to look forward to. Something fun, and sneaky, and sexy!”
Although I don’t doubt that the attendant emotional feelings to an affair can be as intoxicating as the relationship itself, the film doesn’t explore the problems and consequences of the affair. In both cases, with Becky and Cal, Jenna and Dr. Pomatter, they each end up happy and regret free. Even when Jenna breaks off the affair with Dr. Pomatter, she says “I could never thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me.”
For a lighthearted comedy that is billed as “uplifiting” and supposedly depicts reality, this depiction of affairs was a glaring oversight. In Waitress, affairs are therapeutic and, at times, necessary to allow a person to realize their full potential. I simply reject that perspective.
For these reasons I didn’t enjoy the film and would not recommend it.
***I should note that the writer and director of this film, Adrienne Shelly, was brutally murdered shortly after its completion. Obviously a tragic event.
