Waitress (2007)

I give writer-director-co-star Adrienne Shelly this, her Waitress is weird and has conviction in itself. No post modern stuff here, Shelly wants you to fully feel for Jenna (Kerri Russell), the waitress who’s brilliant with pies but a little haphazard in her dealings with men, including her husband (Jeremy Sisto), and the new doctor (Nathan Fillion). One of these guys is a manipulative, controlling lout, the other is a sign post for a better life. I give you one guess which is which. If you guess wrong you may actually enjoy the movie.

The primary problem with Waitress, and it has a few, is that it’s as indecisive as the titular character. You can’t get a handle on the film, and to a certain extent I admire that, but here it ultimately cancels itself out. You essentially think you’re in for a goofy little romantic comedy, but the film keeps pulling the rug out from under that. The Jeremy Sisto scenes are the strongest in the movie, but they don’t belong in this movie, they’re too grim and realistic for a film that largely aspires to be a cartoon. It should be said though that Sisto, an underrated actor, is effective.

The film isn’t very funny even when it’s trying to be though. Waitress is another of those condescending Hollywood versions of a “small town” movie, where everyone talks like an ironically articulate hill billy, and the “quirk” is layed on to the point of suffocation. Shelly is taking a risk here, if you’re going to play the stylized dialogue game, then you better be a virtuoso, you better be a Preston Sturges, or a David Mamet, or a Quentin Tarantino, or a Billy Wilder (and he had a few rough patches too). Otherwise, you’re better advised to eavesdrop while writing.

The film also has a bad habit of squandering good will just as its beginning to build up a little with indulgent, annoying little visual ticks. There’s a scene between Fillion and Russell, about a half hour in, where they kiss by mutual accident. The film was beginning to get me, I admired that we didn’t spend another hour beating around this particular bush. What does Shelly do? She kills it with an obnoxious, cliched, jokey 180 degree pan that deflates the charm of the scene.

Waitress finally, mildly, finds its footing in the last half hour. Shelly commits to staging a coming of age melodrama and pars away most of the other indulgences. Jenna has a baby, and as tired as I am of that particular development, Shelly catches something genuine here. She finds that brief respite that a child can hold for someone, and her point of view is surprisingly tough. I imagine that Waitress’s third act is the movie Shelly wanted to make, and it took her ninety some half baked pages to get there. The final image of the film is lovely, moving, and earned, the first time in the entire film that Shelly really brings off the whimsy she’s been trying too hard for.

Look ladies, I understand why you go to these types of films, men fantasize about finding an understanding someone too, but your standards should be higher. Older folks like to mourn the passing of good cinema, and that’s largely nostalgic crap, with the exception of one genre: the witty, urbane romantic comedy. We have no exceptional filmmakers in this field currently working. Rent Ernst Lubitsch classics like The Shop Around the Corner or the even better Trouble in Paradise. Rent Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve, or, even though it barely applies to the current discussion, Unfaithfully Yours. See what a really charming, romantic film can be. And hold our current filmmakers to these standards. You should hold your men to these standards too, but that’s none of my business.

★★

Posted on December 6th, 2007 in 2007, Reviews, Comedy |

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