Weekly meditations from your humble messenger
Slice
of Life
(Waitress, 6/4/07)
By Nicholas Nicastro
Waitress
is such a pleasant trifle it's hard to believe it's somebody's last
artistic testament. Writer/director Adrienne Shelly first came to prominence
as an actress in a series of highly overrated Hal Hartley films (The
Unbelievable Truth, Trust). Along with TV (Homicide, Law &
Order) and stage work, she had been lately transitioning to behind
the camera. As anyone familiar with the tabloids is aware, Shelly was
found dead in her West Village office in 2006, an apparent suicide at
age 40. A 19 year-old construction worker later confessed to murdering
her after suffering what he described as "a bad day." Such
circumstances, along with the film's sunny disposition, make for bittersweet
viewing.
Shelly's heroine is Jenna (Keri
Russell), a Southern girl who rationalizes her entire world in terms
of pies. Her talent for inventing tasty new ones (and for not-so-cleverly
naming them, such as "I Hate My Husband Pie" and "I Don't
Want No Baby Pie") is unique, but has gotten her no farther than
a dead-end waitressing job at a small town diner. Among the many worthless
men in her life are Earl (Jeremy Sisto), her loutish and infantile husband,
and Ogie (Eddie Jemison), her loutish boor of a boss. Just as she's
plotting escape from all her deep-fried troubles, she turns up pregnant
by Earl. Worse, her new OB-GYN, Dr. Pomatter (Firefly's Nathan
Fillion) is seriously non-loutish. So what's a girl to do?
I should confess that I started
off dubious about Shelly's confection. People who spend their lives
tempted by sweet pastries—and who (as Jenna admits) never exercise—are
rarely as clear of skin and taut of figure as the fit and limpid Russell.
Any story featuring three gum-snapping waitresses (in this case, Russell,
Cheryl Hines, and Shelly herself)—and with none other than Andy
Griffith in the cast—is definitely verging on bad TV territory
(anybody remember the CBS diner sitcom, Alice?).
That this writer still left the
theater with upturned pie-hole has something to do with Shelly's script.
The whole project seems suffused with such sweet, gentle humanity that
only an Earl or an Ogie can resist it. In a typical visual joke, we
watch Jenna go about her day with a stony expression on her face. As
the reality of her happiness with Dr. Pomatter sinks in, her frown slowly
turns upside down, until she is veritably beaming through her soul-deadening
routine. The same expression comes over anybody open to the film's charm.
But Shelly really did put Waitress
on Keri (Felicity) Russell's shoulders, and to the latter most
of the credit must go. Her appeal only begins with her "looks-great-first-thing-in-the-morning"
winsomeness. Russell has something beyond mere beauty that positively
demands empathy—watching her, it's easy for viewers male or female
to take her as an ideal vision of themselves. It's a quality Adrienne
Shelly herself lacked, in her days as an ingenue. I still don't believe
Russell as a pie-making genius, but dwelling on such doubts has about
the same appeal as kicking a two-month old golden retriever.
Though this was Shelly's third feature
as director, this is the first that has gained wide release. It's hard
to say where her talent would have taken her had she lived. Beyond skill
in telling a story or constructing good visuals, a knack for casting—of
knowing to whom a story is best entrusted—is one of dramatic filmmaking's
essential skills. In that, at least, fate served her well.
©2007 Nicholas Nicastro
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