FILM REVIEW: Waitress - If Only Life Were as Easy as Pie

I’ve got my blog, V has her poems, J has her sculptures and S has her paintings, but unhappily married Jenna (Keri Russell), the main character of Waitress, expresses her tumultuous emotions through her pies. Peeing on a pregnancy test wand in the bathroom of Joe’s Pie Diner leads to her "I Don't Want Earl's Baby Pie" and "Pregnant Miserable Self-Pitying Loser Pie."  When she starts sucking face with her obstetrician, she is moved to create an "Earl Murders Me Because I'm Having an Affair Pie."

Three waitresses at the Diner are trying to bake their way out of southern working women’s poverty. Jenna is in an abusive relationship with Earl (Jeremy Sisto); Becky (Cheryl Hines) is more caretaker than wife to a disabled elder and she revels in the thrill of a forbidden affair; and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly, the writer and director) succumbs to the relentless devotion of a dippy dweeb who speaks in mortifying spontaneous verse.

But Jenna is no full-time punching bag for her ass of a husband: she is full of cheeky wit and buoyancy at work, charming the owner Old Joe (Andy Griffith) with her refusal to be intimidated. Her resilient interactions with the world makes her domestic compliance in the face of her husband’s threats all that more discombobulating.

Not that Earl is a simple bad guy. He’s got a mixture of pathos and desperation that serves to give depth to his boorish repulsiveness. In the end, Jenna falls in love with her child, gets a helping hand towards independence and walks into the sunset with her now toddler daughter, poignantly played by Shelly’s real-life daughter Sophie.

Why poignant? Because just days before this film was accepted by Sundance, Adrienne Shelly was murdered after an argument over noise with a construction worker in the apartment below the office where she wrote. He strung her up on her shower-rod so that her death, at 40, was originally dubbed a suicide by the police.

So Adrienne Shelly’s industry triumph with this film about a woman cooking her way out of male violence is overshadowed by her own murder at the hands of a 19 year-old who is reported to have nothing more to say for himself beyond, "I was having a bad day. I didn't mean to kill her. But I did kill her."

Comments

[Gema Gray]

...And so the cycle continues: women finding creative, poignant, sometimes shocking, ways to endure and survive the cycle of senseless male violence. As in the movie, children are often the catalyst for salvation; but all too often the cycle ends - as it did for Shelly - in one final, fatal act of brutality.

[Sue]

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Children may sometimes be the salvation, but they are sometimes the reason why women feel trapped in dangerous relationships. I hope, though, I conveyed that the film is a lot of fun!

[Mia]

I actually found the movie alot of fun as well. I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of Kerri Russel but found all three women really wonderful,actually all the performances were enjoyable. I was a disappointed in Jen's immediate reversal of her feelings, I understood it but I actually thought it was interesting to hear a women not be overjoyed about being pregnant. To notice other situations and be a little terrified. The whole I get strength from my child is such old cliche but i thought it was presented in a fun way. It was nice to see a female driven piece which is getting rarer and rarer these days in the movie world. I appreciate your pointing out the sad irony of her death, I hadn't really thought about it in that way.

[Sue]

Mia, thanks. It takes a brilliant actor like you to point out how enjoyable the three main performances were. I particularly liked how Shelly made herself so ditsy as Dawn. As for the erasure of women from the film industry, unfortunately the same can be said of almost every public sphere in America.

[Jessica B. Burstrem]

Hi, I saw your posting on WMST-L this morning. Thanks for sharing. After reading your review, I was struck by the situation and the husband's name (Earl) and its similarity to a fabulous Dixie Chicks song about revenge on an abusive husband named Earl. It wasn't included in the movie's soundtrack, by any chance, was it? Please check out my own professional blog about mothering via the link posted here. Best, j

[Sue]

Hi Jessica, Thanks for your comment. I don't know if they used the Dixie Chicks song you mention - but it would have been a natural, no? I've always liked Dixie Chicks music, although I am turned off *them* after seeing the documentary on them. Anyway, I'm going to go check out your blog right now.
Sue