‘Waitress’ a bittersweet charmer from a career cut short
Writer-director Adrienne Shelly died before she could witness the gathering acclaim that has greeted her breakthrough film, Waitress, as a finished product. Her slaying last year in New York found the movie complete, awaiting an impressive début at January’s Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
The film’s commercial engagements in North Texas have been sporadic, despite generalized acclaim that by now should have propelled Waitress to the popular-sensation status experienced five years ago by My Big Fat Greek Wedding – a similarly scrappy crowd-pleaser of low-budget origins. Waitress is due July 27-29 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
This warm-hearted and self-possessed film is entirely consistent with ShellyÂ’s efforts of the 1990s (including Sudden Manhattan and IÂ’ll Take You There) and shows a maturation of technique sufficient to have made the artist a candidate for big-studio prospects. ShelleyÂ’s resume contains more acting assignments than writing or directing jobs; she stands out among the supporting cast of Waitress.
Waitress, the story of a pregnant small-towner torn between a lousy marriage and a desperate affair, is a bittersweet charmer with a deeper emotional resonance than its situation-comedy plot might suggest.
Jenna (Keri Russell) is a natural-born genius in the kitchen, and the star attraction of a down-home eatery known as JoeÂ’s Pie Shop. (The pies crucial to the tale emerge as star players in their own right, lensed with a near-erotic appeal by camera chief Matthew Irving.)
Outside the kitchen, however, Jenna wallows helplessly in misery. She is saddled with a truculent husband (Jeremy Sisto) whose threatening nature has left her as afraid to leave as she is to remain with him. Her discovery of a baby on the way – it’s his, of course – complicates matters to the point where Jenna begins plotting to skip town before her husband can notice. Upon consulting a newcomer physician (Nathan Fillion), Jenna finds herself drawn into an adulterous affair before she has taken the time to reflect upon any consequences.
Life at the diner remains reassuringly constant as the filmÂ’s wellhead of folksy wit and edgy banter. The manager (Lew Temple) is a sorehead reminiscent of Vic TaybackÂ’s long-term portrayal in the greasy-spoon sitcom Alice (1976-1985). Waitress Dawn (Shelly) seems destined to find romance in a place sheÂ’d never have thought to go looking. Outspoken Becky (Cheryl Hines) is carrying on behind her husbandÂ’s back, feigning secrecy. The owner, Joe (Andy Griffith, lending a crusty Mayberry, U.S.A., vibe), is a cantankerous snoop with a sentimental streak.
Her getaway plans stalled by the ill-advised affair with her doctor, Jenna finds that her loutish husband can no longer be deceived. The crisis forces her to find a resolution that also proves to test ShellyÂ’s abilities as a screenwriter: Having betrayed an inordinate fondness for the shallower cleverness intrinsic to television-style comedy, will Shelly resort to a similarly shallow plotting device?
No such thing, as it turns out. And no fair giving anything away. At its turning-point the film veers gracefully into the more challenging depths of psychological drama, deepening Keri Russell’s character in the process. The result is as rewarding an experience as the independent-cinema scene has delivered in recent years. By embracing certain obvious clichés of her chosen storytelling genre, Shelly also manages here to defy the audience’s expectations, crafting a film that not only bears discovering for its freshness – but also bears watching again in appreciation of the skillful sleight-of-hand with which Shelly resolves the situation in an unpredictably lifelike manner.
Russell anchors Waitress in an earthy and believable performance, which lends itself to both the pained absurdity of her character’s situation and the grimmer implications of a reckless way of life that could turn tragic at any moment. Russell fluctuates throughout between radiant pride and downtrodden weariness, developing a streak of gumption as a necessary response. Jeremy Sisto refrains from reading the husband as a wife-beater stereotype, working throughout with Shelly to suggest oppression without sidetracking the picture into a grimmer tone of calculated cruelty. As the love-struck doctor, Nathan Fillion seems too much the naïve bumbler to invite the viewer’s contempt for his patent lapse of ethical restraint.
Showtimes at the Modern Art Museum: 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. July 27; 5 p.m. June 28; and 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. July 29. (PG-13)
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