The Waitress

Director and Writer: Adrienne Shelly

Release Date: 10 August 2007 (UK)

Genre: Comedy / Romance

Tagline: "If only life were as easy as pie."

Plot Outline: Jenna is a pregnant, unhappily married waitress in the deep south. She meets a newcomer to her town and falls into an unlikely relationship as a last attempt at happiness...

Cast:

	Keri Russell	...	Jenna
	Nathan Fillion	...	Dr. Pomatter
	Cheryl Hines	...	Becky
	Jeremy Sisto	...	Earl
	Andy Griffith	...	Old Joe
	Adrienne Shelly	...	Dawn
	Eddie Jemison	...	Ogie
	Lew Temple	...	Cal

After a Friday night (two Fridays ago!) enjoying some good acustic music in Soho (I also bought the CD off the artist) and spending Saturday listening to Spanish music no-stop, from Manu Chao (we can't still believe that we were in S Francisco the day they were gigging but tickets were sold-out!) to Juanes, Sergente Garcia, Elvis Crespo, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Sublime (Rivers from Babilon), Sunday morning I went to the cinema with Ale to watch the Waitress.

I had no expectations whatsoever about it, we went only because it was free and I always love to sit in that theatre. Surprisingly, I kinda liked the movie because I sympathised with the protagonist's trapped life and enjoyed Jenna's cynical interpretation distanced by her narrative voice. Other than that, it was nothing special, original or innovative: the usual framework of: an unhappy woman having an unlikely affair; a remote location - hence lack of opportunities; and characters being token more than rounded personalities: her husband was bad and remained bad throughout without betraying the least glint of positive features. When his wife told him that she wanted to go to a pie competition, he said: "NO, you can't go!" And my reaction was: "What? She is not allowed to go to a pie event?!?". However, after I visited America, I can appreciate more their settings - a remote place can really be remote and characters can look like that (in appearance, I mean)!

Food, like in Como Agua para Chocolate, had an influencing and aphrodisiac power but, unlike the Mexican film, did not have the same passion and dramatic outcome. Jenna could see the world through her pies, her comfort and refuge.

So, all in all, this comedy was clumsy sketch of American life with glimpses of interesting reflections on life. When I found out that the director/writer, Adrienne Shelly, who plays Dawn, was pregnant when she wrote the script (baby Lulu in the last scene was her daughter) and that she was murdered last year in Manhattan, her last film suddenly became truly tragic.