Waitress

While I hesitate to be a party-pooper, I must call a spade a spade and say that (IMHO) this film would probably NOT have gained general release had it not been for the tragic circumstances of the writer/director's demise. The acting is fine, 'tho a bit amateurish, the editing is crisp, and the cinematography is acceptable. The major faults lie in the story and direction. There's hardly any substance here. It's doesn't work as comedy - not even light-grey (certainly not "dark") comedy... characters are poorly developed (except for what other chrs have to say about them -- sure, Earl is a jerk, but not all that bad a jerk, and - for that matter, so is the sexually exploitative and wholly unethical Dr. P, and Becky and Dawn tell us that Joe is insufferable and Cal a mean-spirited slave-driver). The only chr I could see with any clarity was Ogie (sp?), and that's because there wasn't much there to begin with. No one's motives were any more than hearsay by other chrs. Was this a morality tale? A comedy? A spoof? (Of what?) A love story? (certainly not! How could one see the frantic necking and sex between Dr. P and Jenna as being in any way serious?) It could be called a "chick flick," but only if the definition of chick-flick insists that every male chr be a self-interested, sex-seeking arschloch. Were the chrs stereotypes? Clichés? WHAT WAS THE POINT? To be sure, this was an earnest effort at film-making/storytelling, but it falls far short of just about everything except "cute."

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source: Waitress

Jenna (Keri Russell) is a waitress at a small town, southern pie diner. Each morning she invents a new pie that corresponds to her mood or life at that particular moment. Her co-workers are neurotic, her husband's abusive and there is no escape. But after accidentally becoming pregnant, Jenna finds a new lease on life in her doctor (Nathan Fillion). Is this the happiness she's been looking for? My good friend Chelsea and I were all set to watch a horrible movie when we found this disc left in the DVD player by an unseen hand. She had heard good things, and I was ready for anything. Add on the fact it comes from Fox Searchlight (who seem skilled at picking out independent features) and stars Fillion (and Andy Griffith) and I was happy to give it a chance. Well, I'm sorry to ruin everybody's party, but all the positive reviews of this film are wrong. It is a complete waste of time from beginning to end. Keri Russell is bland, her character is surprisingly not particularly lovable (I barely felt bad she was being abused) and for the most part her co-stars and supporting characters are not overly interesting. I sort of enjoyed the character of one of the co-workers (sorry, I forgot her name) and I like Lew Temple (who plays manager Cal) as an actor... but really, it just wasn't working. Not even Fillion could save this. The film was cliché after cliché with a predictable plot... I won't give anything away, but let's just say you could guess the entire film's direction after the first ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe this works in romantic comedies, but this movie wasn't all that romantic and fell far short of a comedy. It was really going for the indie vibe, as evidenced by the artsy shots of someone (clearly not Russell) making pies of an unusual variety. I'm sorry, your artsiness doesn't work on me. Others have criticized my love of "Juno", saying it was just trying too hard to be independent. Well, that's how I feel about this one. If those people want to see "Waitress" and get back to me, I'd love to discuss this one. Towards the third act, Chelsea was getting physical ill from lack of redeeming value. Not long after, I felt the pains, too. Unless you hate your life and want to ruin an otherwise good day, don't waste your time with "Waitress".

The high rating @IMDB made me watch that movie - and I am *very* disappointed. It is shallow, plain and predictable! While one must assume that this was intended to be that way, the movie still turned the corner towards "cheesy" way too hard. Really... waaaaaayyyy too hard. Actually, my brain felt violated and offended. However, there are two person I enjoyed somehow: Old Joe (Andy Griffith) and Shelly herself (as "Dawn", especially when she confessed about her new boyfriend). "Earl" was another character more interesting (I like Jeremy Sisto). Résumé : maybe one should be a woman to enjoy that movie?

I have been a big Adrienne Shelly fan since her early Hal Hartley movies and also saw her uneven but touching "I'll Take You There," where she brought out the screwball in Ally Sheedy without sacrificing her edge. Here she brings out a deeply funny, authentic and moving performance from Keri Russell, a performer I did not dislike but never thought a lot of before this film. She also casts the rest of the people impeccably, A#1 being Andy Griffith;if you've ever seen "A Face in the Crowd" you know that he is one of the titanic largely untapped acting talents of the last century. His scenes with Ms. Russell make up the true heart of this small but mighty film. Jeremy Sisto is perfect as well, his character is not given any background beyond the fact that he changed after marriage, but Sisto constant vulnerability mixed with his monstrosity and telling lines like "I've never had anybody belong to me before," seem to indicate that he became drunk with the power of authority when he entered the marriage and his own fragile sense of power caused him to be the (often hilarious, as with the car honking, often terrible, as with the physical violence) broken, absurd and terrible person he is in the film. Eddie Jemison shines in a part that is really risky, he has to be even more overbearing than Sisto's character, but to be the exact opposite, to be actually worthy. Shelly herself and Cheryl Hines are solid in their support (Shelly is adorable), but keep the spotlight firmly on Ms. Russell. Nathan Fillion has been perfect in everything I've ever seen him in, and his open and unpretentious, handsome semi-doofus-but-convincing-as-a-doctor character shows a broader range than his heretofore role as a sort of new-wave Bruce Campbell. Unfortunately the film loses its footing towards the end with sentiment overtaking the sensibilities preceding it. A maudlin and manipulative mother-daughter song is obviously ADR and not source, and it relies upon the old "everything changes when you see your baby" switcheroo. Then she leaves the hospital without even checking on Old Joe, who just gave her tons of money and is currently in a coma (presumably because to have him just dead would be…what, too much of a downer? A coma is better?), then she buys the pie shop and takes Joe's name off it, which doesn't seem very nice. She gives up any chance for a balanced life and lives entirely for her daughter, who she dresses like a doll and then dresses up the same as. She also ditches the doc who, while married to a good person, obviously loves her more than his wife. It is through the outright charm of Fillion and Ms. Russell that the entire affair is able to come across as not-as-not-right as it is. But for it to go nowhere brings back the creepiness about it they managed to turn away. The whole first 2/3 of the movie is pretty excellent, but I can't ignore that I was really let down by the way it all wrapped up. Up until that point there is a sense of genuine feeling and a level-headedness about, for example, how difficult it must be to leave even someone like Earl and everything you know, not just making it seem easy. Then at the end she just does it, he is dragged off, apparently never gives her more trouble and it actually was just that easy. Ms. Shelly was undeniably very very talented and her death is a great loss to the film community (and so sad that the little girl at the end is hers), maybe her next one would have been 3/3 excellent. I think I'm going to go eat some pie now.

The story line in this movie was nothing more than a string of infidelities glorified. The movie lacked a substantial plot and ended abruptly giving no real closure to the story at all. I continued watching hoping that there would be at least some redeeming value to the adulterous characters only to be sorely disappointed. In fact, it was blatantly obvious that the moral of the story is that infidelity will help free you of all pain in your life. How absurd. I would advise anyone who is even considering wasting their time with this movie to not do it. I have relinquished two hours of my life that I will never be able to get back. It may have been the absolute worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. No exaggeration.

I recently went to a local movie theatre, in spite of misgivings about going to a chick flick, to watch Waitress. I was told by my female friend that it was a wonderful movie, "very romantic". The word "romantic" immediately alerted me that I was being asked to go to a) a chick flick, b) in common with most chick flicks it would show men bad, women good, c) yet another movie upholding the virtues of a wife solving her marital problems by "screwing" her doctor, the pool boy, actually any male will do. He only need be "handy" and ready to meet her needs.Funny how often the path to women's liberation in chick flicks so closely follows the standard * flick formula of "horny wife" meet "sexy stud" for a night or two of exchanging various body fluids. Really the only difference between a chick flick and a * flick in terms of affairs of the loin is that a bit more time is spent on foreplay in chick flicks than in * flicks. But in the end the results are the same. The wife is bedded and usually enjoys the experience! The usual formula was followed in Waitress: introduce and get the ladies to hate the husband. The idea being, of course, to give the female lead( the wife) permission to get a little on the side and for the mostly female audience to see it all as different from a guy getting a little on the side. In fact, it is a given that we would have hated the cardboard-like husband even more if he was shagging one of the local ladies, after revealing to his newly found bed partner that he, of course, was unloved and unappreciated both at home and in bed. Yet, reverse the roles allow the wife to get a little on the side with a sexy looking doctor, after the requisite foreplay, of course, and somehow we are expected to see in this affair of the loins: ROMANCE. I find it sad that many mothers here thought this is a good film to share with their daughters. What are they sharing? If your marriage isn't working out, if prince charming proves to be as boring and unloving as you that this gives you license to cheat and have sex with whoever whispers "sweet nothings" in your ear. It is not exactly the advise I would want to share with my daughter. I found the movie predictable and the ending about as clichéd an ending as one could possibly imagine. If you believe getting a little on the side in a marriage, cheating, withholding your love from your spouse is honourable and life affirming, if you believe a woman is only a woman by having a baby, if you believe getting a divorce subtracts your spouse out of your life once and for all, if you believe that life is all about living happily ever after then you may enjoy this fairy tale. If not...if you are truly a grown up, why waste your money?

While I hesitate to be a party-pooper, I must call a spade a spade and say that (IMHO) this film would probably NOT have gained general release had it not been for the tragic circumstances of the writer/director's demise. The acting is fine, 'tho a bit amateurish, the editing is crisp, and the cinematography is acceptable. The major faults lie in the story and direction. There's hardly any substance here. It's doesn't work as comedy - not even light-grey (certainly not "dark") comedy... characters are poorly developed (except for what other chrs have to say about them -- sure, Earl is a jerk, but not all that bad a jerk, and - for that matter, so is the sexually exploitative and wholly unethical Dr. P, and Becky and Dawn tell us that Joe is insufferable and Cal a mean-spirited slave-driver). The only chr I could see with any clarity was Ogie (sp?), and that's because there wasn't much there to begin with. No one's motives were any more than hearsay by other chrs. Was this a morality tale? A comedy? A spoof? (Of what?) A love story? (certainly not! How could one see the frantic necking and sex between Dr. P and Jenna as being in any way serious?) It could be called a "chick flick," but only if the definition of chick-flick insists that every male chr be a self-interested, sex-seeking arschloch. Were the chrs stereotypes? Clichés? WHAT WAS THE POINT? To be sure, this was an earnest effort at film-making/storytelling, but it falls far short of just about everything except "cute."

I can't believe this movie is so highly rated. All I can see is a badly written, badly acted mess. It tries to be heartfelt and bittersweet but it ends up just being creepy. The main character is a miserable, angry woman who is being abused and slapped around by her evil, dim-witted husband. She plots her escape while having an affair with a married doctor. To make everything worse, she's pregnant but does not want the baby. The writer/director wants to make a light, sweet comedy out of this grim stuff. It does not work at all. It's as if someone took the script of "Medea" and tried to make a rom-com. Nathan Fillion is actually quite good. The rest is best forgotten.