trade places with her,'' says Dawn (Adrienne ``Waitress.'' The women work together at Joe's Pie Diner, a bustling restaurant in a small Southern town. In the kitchen, Jenna is a sort of sorceress, with a natural knack for creating unusual, irresistible confections, such as Marshmallow Mermaid Pie and Pregnant, Jenna's home life, however, is anything but sweet.
It turns out she whipped up that Pregnant, Miserable, out she's carrying the baby of her husband, Earl about to dump. But the unplanned pregnancy turns out to be an opportunity disguised as an obstacle. It allows Jenna to ``That pie was biblically good,'' Jim says after sampling the Marshmallow Mermaid Pie; suddenly, Jenna has a new reason to keep on keeping on.
In some ways, ``Waitress'' is a throwback to the and early 1980s, when directors like Susan Seidelman (``Looking for Mr. Goodbar'') and Jane Fonda and films that examined the lives, loves and fantasies of complex female characters. Shelly, who was killed while ``Waitress'' was in post-production, would have fit in perfectly alongside these artists.
levels, someone who seems like a simple soul on the surface but has plenty of anger, longing and ambition behind her sparkling eyes and well-practiced smile. Russell, who is no her four seasons on the WB's ``Felicity,'' eagerly plunges into Jenna's psyche, trying to unravel such an unsatisfying life.
meeting,'' Jenna writes in a letter to her unborn child.
``Many of the things that happen are not worth living unexpressed sorrows, she also taps into her humor and warmth, particularly in her scenes with the thoroughly curmudgeonly boss, played with a delightful sort of salty sass by Andy Griffith.
as a defense mechanism. Too frightened -- or perhaps just too tired -- to confront Earl, Jenna chooses instead to zone her husband.
Here Anymore,'' the 1974 drama that inspired the hollers ``kiss my grits'' at Joe's Pie Diner, employees and a dead end for others. Jenna is determined to do something else but dreads the arrival of her baby, whom she thinks will be nothing more than a human ball and chain.
As in ``Little Miss Sunshine,'' another comedy lives, there's a sense of despair lurking behind the laughs here.
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