Review: Waitress

A small town Southern waitress, who has quite the talent in creating some of the best pies in the county, re-evaluates her life and realizes that she can’t stand her controlling husband and wants to get the phluck outta Dodge. Just as she’s all set to go, her asshole husband knocks her up and a young “handsome” doctor sets up a practice in the town. The new love spark begins. A lot of pie creation named after some pretty powerful emotions, good ol’ fashion comedy and Andy frickin’ Griffith ensue.

The only reason why I knew anything about this flick was because JoBlo asked me to review it. This just proves the point that every once in awhile, a movie will come out of nowhere with zero marketing and it will blow your socks off. I’m glad that I went to see this movie! WAITRESS is a great little flick! It’s a sweet charming comedy that everyone can appreciate. This is the type of movie that makes for a good alternative if you can’t make it into one of the bigger movies that sold out that night. Yes, it’s a flick geared toward more of a “female” audience, but trust me guys, you’ll dig it too!

Keri Russell plays Jenna, the waitress who desperately wants to move on with her life. She’s super cute in a non-naughty way (and that’s a good thing). Russell was really good here, but I would have liked if she had a stronger Southern accent, since as it was…you barely heard it; but then again, that’s just me nit-picking. Most importantly, this is a huge step in the right direction for Russell’s career. It’s totally different from the roles we’re used to seeing her play and it’s good to see she can finally shed that “Felicity” skin.

Nathan Fillion plays Dr. Pomatter and new love interest to Jenna. Here’s a guy who has come a long way since that little role in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. His quirky confidence was fun to watch and his chemistry with Jenna was…how shall I say this, it was like I was watching the first time you had a crush on someone and they felt the same way. Yeah…that’s what it felt like. What can I say, I’m like a dog who likes to get rubbed on the stomach…I’m a suck!

The rest of the supporting characters were equally great. Jeremy Sisko played the perfect insecure asshole (I knew a guy like that, too). Cheryl Hines was born to play her role as Becky, she was just perfect. And finally, Mr. Andy Griffith! This fine gentleman still has the “goods”, folks! Screw T.V., get this guy into more films…please!

Adrienne Shelly who wrote and directed this film did an amazing job. Not to mention she plays Dawn, one of Jenna friends at the diner. She took a very simple storyline and added some real charm to it, making this a great flick without any big names to carry it. It’s a shame she died last year and this was her last piece. She had real talent for story telling and connecting with the viewers with situations that most people can relate to on one level or another. I definitely want to check out some of her earlier work now!

They should take one tenth of the marketing budget of a movie like say SPIDER-MAN 3 and put that into the marketing of a film like this, just as a test to see what happens. Hopefully good word of mouth will help this movie along as it definitely deserves a good audience! If you want to take a step back from all of the big movies coming out, you should definitely check this one out.

— by Tim
Goernert