Waitress review

A celebration of the power of pies, Waitress is an offbeat, touching and funny look at one woman's culinary escape from domestic hell. From the salivating opening credits to the closing dedication, Waitress is steeped in the single-minded and gifted vision of its writer, director and co-star, Adrienne Shelly. A blooming talent, Shelly was tragically murdered while still working on the film, but in Waitress she has left a wonderful legacy.

Full of inventive wit and unexpected choices, it has an engaging way of catching you off guard. Inhabited with a rich and eccentric cast of characters, Waitress in both look and tone takes place in a world that only superficially resembles reality. It has an air of fantasy about it as the central characters are inclined to live in their heads, preferring to dream than face the drab routine of their provincial existence.

It's why Jenna (Keri Russell) loses herself in her baking. "I just want to make pies," she mourns. Trapped in a marriage to the violent and controlling Earl (Jeremy Sisto), she expresses herself through her creative cooking, inventing exotic new pies every day for the diner in which she works. She christens her pies for the purpose for which they were baked or for how she's feeling. After learning she's pregnant, she bakes the 'I Don't Want Earl's Baby Pie.'

Her two waitressing colleagues, Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly), are both starved of love, but because of Earl neither girl envies Jenna. "I don't care if she's a pie genius, I wouldn't trade places with her," says Dawn, whose pessimistic approach to romance has reduced her to going on five minute dates, so if it doesn't work she "hasn't wasted the whole evening."

Jenna hides her money from Earl, saving it for the day she finally runs away. Beginning with her pregnancy, her miserable life gets turned upside down even further when she begins an affair with her handsome, but very married, pediatrician Dr Pommater (Nathan Fillion).

Possessed of a quirky sensibility, radiated by the vivid art direction, stylised photography and uncommon dialogue, Waitress blends a ready charm with a darker side. Russell is excellent as the conflicted and determined Jenna. She carries the weight of a beaten soul, but one who still occasionally illuminates with the flicker of the bright light within. She's ably supported by Cheryl Hines as the vibrant Becky and Shelly as the mousy Dawn, with a terrific turn by Andy Griffith as the curmudgeonly owner of the diner.

Pies are used as much as a metaphor as they are literally, as Waitress carries the underlying message that appearances are deceiving and it's what inside a person that really counts. If one was inspired by Waitress, it should be called 'The Deliciously Funny Original Bitter Sweet It's Not Just About Pies Really Pie.'

Kevin Murphy