A young woman finds herself trapped with a husband she hates, a low paying job, and in a town that’s too small for her. Things get complicated when she starts seeing a married doctor and then gets pregnant by the husband.

I’m not sure what it is, but I’ve never liked any movie about a poor, pregnant woman. Granted, pregnant women give me the willies, but somehow their plight doesn’t work well on the big screen. It’s not like there have been a lot over the years, but the ones that have been made haven’t gotten it right. WAITRESS gets an “E” for effort, but ultimately it falls short of being a good film.

There are two ways to watch this film. The first is not knowing anything about Adrienne Shelly and the second is knowing she was murdered in her Greenwich Village apartment in November of 2006. I’ll be honest and say that knowing about her tragic death changes the way you look at the film and it adds a depressing factor to the film that otherwise wouldn’t have been there. She was a good actress and if WAITRESS is any example, she could’ve been a good director. Although I didn’t enjoy the film, Adrienne showed a lot of potential and it’s sad we’ll never see it realized.

I’m a fan of Keri Russell, but it’s really hard for a beautiful actress to play a poor, uneducated, pregnant woman. Natalie Portman is a great actress, but she couldn’t pull it off in WHERE THE HEART IS. Keri Russell is also a pretty good actress, but I didn’t buy it with her either. One of the problems is that they still had her in full make-up. It takes more to make a girl look poor and trashy than to mess up her hair. I’m also a big fan of Nathan Fillion. He did an alright job with what he had, but his character was grossly underused. In fact, we don’t get any information on him until the last 15 minutes or so.

Overall, the film struggled at times and I would’ve liked to see the pie angle handled differently. The pies were a big part of the film and I think it would’ve been neat to have a pie story run concurrent with the lead character’s plight. I also would’ve liked more information and story on Fillion’s character. As it was, we didn’t get any back-story on him until the last 15 minutes or so.

Video: Widescreen (1.85:1): It’s a low budget film, so the video quality isn’t the best.

Audio: English 5.1 with English and Spanish subtitles: Audio was fine, but surround effects aren’t used because they aren’t needed.

Commentary with Keri Russell and Michael Roiff: I feared that Keri and Michael were going to be bummed throughout the film since both of them were close to Adrienne. However, they both managed to avoid the subject and instead focus on the film. Unfortunately, they still didn’t give a very good commentary and I got the feeling neither of them wanted to be there. Keri seemed shy and didn’t have much to say and Michael got too distracted watching the film.

This is how we made Pie (10:17): This is a normal fluff piece about the making of the film. It contains way too many cut scenes and doesn’t offer much information.

Written and directed by Adrienne Shelly: A Memorial (6:50): This is as close as the filmmakers come to talking about what happened to Adrienne Shelly. This short featurette is all we get about her. It’s sweet, but I would have liked to see a lot more. I’m sure there was plenty of footage of her and I think she deserved a longer featurette.

Hi, I’m Keri Russell, I’ll be your Waitress (5:44): This was Keri Russell talking about her character and the evolution of her role. It’s decent, but it contains a lot of movie scenes and doesn’t give us anything we didn’t already know.

The Pies Have it (2:53): This is about three minutes of the filmmakers talking about pies. If you really loved the pie aspect of the film, you might enjoy this.

Fox Movie Channel Presents: In Character with Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion and Cheryl Hines (10:18): The three main stars talk about their characters in the film. You can watch these separately if you prefer. They say what you’d expect them to say and don’t delve too deep into their roles.

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WAITRESS was a good effort, but it didn't quite hit the mark. Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion give good performances, but it wasn't quite enough to make it a good film.