‘Waitress’ serves up great dialogue and characters
I am very particular about how I like to watch my movies in
theaters. I like to be to the movie theater in time to get my
favorite spot
– the first row behind the handicap seating area in most stadium
style theaters. I want to answer all the cheesy quiz questions
during the
”
pre-movie
”
show. And more than anything I want to watch the previews so I
can scope out all the upcoming movies and classify them into
categories
– movies I must see, movies I can wait to see on video, and
movies I wouldn’t watch if someone paid me. Well, let’s talk about
prices and maybe I can be flexible on that last one.
‘Waitress’ serves up great dialogue and characters
I am very particular about how I like to watch my movies in theaters. I like to be to the movie theater in time to get my favorite spot – the first row behind the handicap seating area in most stadium style theaters. I want to answer all the cheesy quiz questions during the “pre-movie” show. And more than anything I want to watch the previews so I can scope out all the upcoming movies and classify them into categories – movies I must see, movies I can wait to see on video, and movies I wouldn’t watch if someone paid me. Well, let’s talk about prices and maybe I can be flexible on that last one.
So this weekend when a friend asked if I wanted to see a movie, I knew he would be late. He called just minutes before he was supposed to be at my house and said he had to feed his dogs and then he’d be on his way … I knew we were going to cut it close in terms of making the movie on time. By the time we found parking in downtown San Jose and got to the theater, my cell phone time read 7:02 p.m. The movie start time was 7 p.m.
Then Saturday nights is when a trio shows up to protest homosexuality outside of the Camera 12 and Starbucks – apparently movie-goers and coffee-drinkers have a penchant for sin. So as we are standing outside waiting to buy our tickets, trying to ignore the shouts of madmen, the only person in line in front of us asked for a ticket for a movie that it turns out was playing at Camera 7. She proceeded to argue with the cashier for several minutes before asking what else was starting – actually started by then – at 7 p.m. As the cashier read off movies, the woman asked for a synopsis of each one. By the time we got into the theater, my movie of choice had just started playing – no quiz questions, no perfect seat, no previews.
But the movie was good enough to make it worth the agitation of getting to it.
For weeks, people had been telling me to go see this little independent film called “Waitress.” But Keri Russell was in it and I never really liked her and then when I looked at movie times, it was only playing in San Jose. And then no one in my family wanted to see it. So when my friend wanted to see a movie, it seemed like a good opportunity to check it out since nothing else I wanted to see was playing last weekend.
The stars of the film are surely Keri Russell who plays the main character, Jenna, Andy Griffith, who plays the owner of the diner where Jenna works – Old Joe, and Nathan Fillion as Dr. Pomatter. The supporting cast includes Adrienne Shelly, who also wrote and directed the film, as pasty-white waitress Dawn and Cheryl Hines as the bubbly-but-not-so-smart blond Becky.
At the beginning of the movie, Becky and Dawn describe how desperate their lives are – Becky with her invalid husband at home and Dawn with her unfortunate complexion – but both of them agree they would never want to trade places with Jenna. Jenna is a beautiful woman with a girl-next-door look and a way with pies that is indescribable, but her downfall is Earl. Jeremy Sisto plays Earl, Jenna’s controlling and abusive husband. He does so in a way that is sickening, but believable and it makes me wonder if Sisto has trouble getting a date in real life. He seems to have knack for playing abusive husbands, schizophrenics and jerks all the way back to his turn in “Clueless” when he tried to attack young Cher (Alicia Silverstone.)
Jenna had been saving money to leave Earl when she finds herself pregnant. She blames it on that time Earl got her drunk six weeks before. “I do stupid things when I drink,” Jenna says. Most of us do, Jenna.
The story takes a turn when Jenna meets the new doctor, not the one she’s been seeing her entire life, and she finds herself attracted to the dashing dark-haired Dr. Pomatter. The two begin an on-again-off again affair and while it made me want to scream at Jenna not to leave one bad man for another – though Dr. Pomatter seems perfect in every way the ring on his left hand betrays him – it is hard not to get drawn in by her happiness.
For most of the movie, Jenna is sad. She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t laugh. She cries often. So when halfway through the movie Jenna smiles after an encounter with Dr. Pomatter, the contrast between her looking happy and sad is stark.
Though the duo seems so happy together, Jenna’s encounters with Dr. Pomatter are tainted with the knowledge that they are both married and it can never work out. Jenna’s encounters with Old Joe are much purer. Andy Griffith plays the rheumy eyed, white-haired diner owner, who all the waitresses except Jenna avoid. She puts up with his reading of advice columns, horoscopes and demands for pie on a separate plate. Though he tries to come across as a crochety, grumpy old man, it’s clear Old Joe has a soft spot for Jenna and vice versa.
In the end Jenna redeems herself – as one character said, the point in life is sometimes just to be “happy enough,” and Jenna finds her way to get there.
