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Editor's Note: Pie on Mother’s Day
By Ron Steinman

Normally we would not run a publicity release about a new film. However, this one caught my eye because it is about pie. Who does not love pie? Pie is as American, well, as only pie can be and the theme of the new film “Waitress,” by Adrienne Shelly, whom we all know died before the film’s release. Read Jan Huttner’s review below and you will understand what I am saying.

To commemorate Mother’s Day, Fox Searchlight Pictures in special screenings in 100 theaters across the country will be giving away special gift bags with, among other things, Sara Lee Simple Sweets 6-Inch Pre-Baked Pie. The release says nothing about the flavor or flavors of the pie. Check your local listings to find out where the film is showing and how to obtain your goody bag. This will be one hard to resist give-away.

“I think there are a lot of ways that a woman has advantages in being a director. On the set, when you’re in charge of fifty or more people, and you know what it is to nurture people and make them feel useful & make them feel good about what they’re doing, you can be a leader & still be a woman, & it’s a really sexy feeling!”

-- Adrienne Shelly
( “In the Company of Women”)

In the 2003 IFC documentary “In the Company of Women,” actress Tilda Swinton talks frankly about why she thinks men should see films about women: “It’s a very rare holiday still to be given the opportunity to go into a woman’s psyche, and see the world, and see the existential experience of life through her eyes.” The new film “Waitress,” written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, is precisely this kind of holiday. Everything we know about this waitress (“Jenna”), we know from the inside, and what little we know about her world also comes from her perspective.

Jenna is no realist; retreating ever inward after the death of her mother, she’s like the heroine of a fairy tale. Her odious husband “Earl” is a handsome guy who probably started out looking like Prince Charming, but the more she kisses him, the more she sees him as a toad. Every day, Earl finds occasion to remind Jenna that her seemingly comfortable home is in fact his castle.

Instead of spinning straw into gold like the miller’s daughter in Rumpelstiltskin, Jenna makes pies. If Alison Anders, the filmmaker behind the waitress-centered indie “Gas, Food, Lodging,” had directed this film, Jenna would be living on the edge of exhaustion. One person cannot possibly make all these pies, from scratch yet, especially when she’s also responsible for serving them. But fairy tales don’t tackle grim truths head on; Shelly’s candy-colored palette is enough to convince us, all by itself and right from the start, that Jenna’s story is heading towards a suitably happy ending.

Keri Russell as Jenna.
Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight. © TCFFC.

There is no way to turn back the clock. By the time you read this review, you will probably know that Adrienne Shelly was murdered in her Manhattan office last November. I certainly knew this awful fact when I saw “Waitress” at a critics screening in Chicago last month. So maybe one day it will be possible to see this film “in itself,” but for right now, we must deal with it in context.

In context, then, “Waitress” will open in New York and LA on the heels of yet another New York Times article in which dismal new “Celluloid Ceiling” statistics are attributed to the fact that women aren’t really committed to careers. Ignoring everything else that her other sources tell her, Sharon Waxman concludes with this quote from retired producer Sherry Lansing: “Women [also] want to be in love. A huge percentage want children. They want friends. They want life.” [“Hollywood’s Shortage of Female Power;” April 26, 2007]

But Shelly’s legacy points us in the opposite direction: in both her own brief life and in the life of her character Jenna, fulfillment comes through the combination. Being a director was an opportunity to “nurture people.” Acting as a leader was “a really sexy feeling.” Shelly wrote “Waitress” when she was carrying her first child, and the birth of her daughter Sophie served to liberate her voice rather than stifle it. Newsweek quotes “Waitress” producer Michael Roiff remembering the day Shelly proudly crowed: “See, it CAN be done!” (referencing her accomplishments as a working mother).

Sitting in the screening room last month, I was filled with emotion. I’m not a girly-girl and none of my close friends are either, so entering Jenna’s world did not come naturally to me. But once I relaxed into it, I was thoroughly charmed. Keri Russell does a terrific job as Jenna, capturing complex, layered emotions in every single scene. The best parts take place in a diner called Joe’s Pie Shop, where Jenna works side by side with “Dawn” and “Becky.” Like all true workplace buddies, Becky, Jenna and Dawn are totally interdependent and indispensable to one another for as long as they need to be. As is often the case when women bond, the fact that they would probably never be friends if they hadn’t landed in the same place at the same time is totally irrelevant. Shelly cast herself as “Dawn,” a sweetly quirky klutz; her counterweight is brash, tough-talking “Becky” (expertly played by Cheryl Hines).

The male roles in “Waitress” are less interesting. Lew Temple as Cal, the manager, is a paper tiger; Andy Griffith, playing the old coot customer, is a bit too obvious; and Nathan Fillion as Dr. Pomatter, the handsome new guy in town, is too good to be true, even in a fairy tale. But Jeremy Sisto is truly chilling as “Earl.” Like Woody Harellson in last year’s excellent adaptation “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio,” he somehow convinced me to feel sorry for him even as I wanted to kill him on Jenna’s behalf.

Given the media hype surrounding her tragic death, “Waitress” has a chance to be a box office success (unlike, say “Prize Winner” which definitely deserved better). I will never have the chance to meet Shelly face-to-face, so I will never know for sure, but I’m guessing she would appreciate the irony. Here’s her answer to the “Celluloid Ceiling” question (from “In the Company of Women”):

“It’s funny; I’ve come full circle on this topic. I started out saying: ‘I’m never, ever going to speak like it’s harder because I’m a woman. That’s the last thing I’m ever, ever gonna do.’ And then, five years later, I was saying: ‘You know, it really is much harder because I’m a woman, much harder, and I want everyone to know and I want to talk about it constantly.’ And then, now, I’m sorta back to feeling like it’s hard for everybody. It’s hard. It’s a hard business.”

For her family and friends there can be no consolation, but those of us who will only know Adrienne Shelly by her work can still hope that the story of “Waitress” has a suitably happy ending.

“In the Company of Women” directors Lesli Klainberg and Gini Reticker (center), with film critic B. Ruby Rich (far left) and producer Lisa Ades (far right).
Photo credit: Brian Brooks/ © indieWIRE

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Jan Lisa Huttner is the managing editor of Films for Two: The Online Guide for Busy Couples. In addition to freelance work for a variety of print and online publications, Jan writes regular columns for the JUF News, Chicago's Jewish community monthly, and Chicago Woman, a bi-monthly published by The Woman's Newspapers. She is an active member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Illinois Woman's Press Association.