Mon, 06/11/2007 - 11:05am

Waitress, a movie which this summer, has been one of the most highly regarded and praised movies to open yet, is certainly worth its many stars and stellar reviews. I was skeptical at first by all the great reviews as I couldn’t erase from my mindset the fact that this film was written by and directed by Adrienne Shelly, who also plays a prominent supporting role. Because Shelly was recently murdered in her New York City apartment, (while Waitress was in post-production), I couldn’t help but fear that the reviews I was reading were skewed in to preserve the memory of a young Hollywood talent lost. However my fears were put to rest after seeing this truly delightful and endearing movie.

While I may be slightly biased due to my adolescent worshipping of Kerri Russell in her infamous role as Felicity Porter, it doesn’t take a die-hard fan to see that Russell’s performance is perfectly on point in this film as she shines in her portrayal a depressed young woman in a hopeless marriage whose inner charm comes about through her exceptional pie-making talent. While the film does feature some stock characters and a few uninteresting scenarios, this only helps Russell stand out even more as she continually wins over the audience with her perfectly delivered lines and her overall grace and beauty.

There’s much to be said about the story as well. A near perfectly written dark comedy, Waitress is a story about a young woman stuck (literally – she doesn’t even own her own car) in a marriage which couldn’t possibly make her more unhappy. Her unhappiness is tainted further by the news that she is now carrying the baby of her barbaric husband. A plot is hatched wherein our heroine – named Jenna, is to enter into a national pie-making contest, the prize money from which could more than take her and her unborn child away from her dreadful husband and the dreary small town where she lives. The movie moves along with sets of realistic and archetypal situations which clues us in on the idiosyncrasies and quirks of the people who live and work in this anonymous yet truly authentic, small town of America. Our heroine embodies a common human struggle and forces us to examine how the structures of our society can hurt its members and the presence of a young life reminds us of how easily these structures get passed down. All of this of course, is told with a wry and honest humor, through the acting talents of one of the best performances I have seen in a long time. Overall Waitress is truly a gem of a movie. Recommendation? a slice of: “I-better-get-to-the-theatre-and-see-this-movie pie”.