Review: Waitress

Waitress suggests an SNL alum’s reinterpretation of the TV show Alice.

Waitress
Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Adrienne Shelly, whose brutal murder last year casts an uncomfortable pall over Waitress, was very much a student of Hal Hartley. Her tense compositional sense suggests someone else’s influence, but her ability to locate recognizable human feeling in zealously quirked settings is clearly a gift she learned from the man who launched her career with The Unbelievable Truth and Trust. Comedy and tragedy exist awkwardly side by side in this drab little film that suggests an SNL alum’s reinterpretation of the TV show Alice, but these masks do not engage with each other to thrill but to confound.

More unfortunate is the story’s almost nonexistent sense of time and place, resulting in a film that not only looks visually chafed but one with characters whose behaviors feel groundless. Everyone is a retrograde conceit, none more obnoxious than Earl (Jeremy Sisto), the husband of Keri Russell’s pie-making genius. Unhappy with her marriage, Jenna (Russell) begins having an affair with Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion, likely hired because of his uncanny likeness to Martin Donovan, another Hartley protégé), who treats her unwanted pregnancy.

Through this affair, Jenna is superficially elated, but it’s not until she gives birth that she realizes what she really wants. One conceit that does work is Jenna’s relationship to her elaborate pies, whose recipes are intriguing manifestations of her inner turmoil. Predictably scripted, the film also impresses with its flurry of very funny one-liners and excellent performances, from Andy Griffith as Old Joe to Shelly herself as a waitress who works at the man’s pie diner. Russell is especially good, always credible as this small-town girl looking for a way out from her pathetic daily grind, even though the horrors that suffocate her never are.

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Score: 
 Cast: Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, Adrienne Shelly, Jeremy Sisto, Andy Griffith, Eddie Jemison, Lew Temple  Director: Adrienne Shelly  Screenwriter: Adrienne Shelly  Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures  Running Time: 104 min  Rating: PG-13  Year: 2007  Buy: Video

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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