Film: "Waitress"

I watched Waitress over the weekend, a quirky, independent film about Jenna, a small-town girl (played by Felicity's Keri Russell) with an exceptional pie-baking aptitude and dreams of leaving her husband.

There's a lot to love about this movie - from Jenna's creative pie names (e.g. "I don't want Earl's baby pie") to the comedic supporting characters (Cheryl Hines and Adrienne Shelly are a riot) to the tender letters Jenna writes to her unborn child, Waitress pulls at the heartstrings all while offering hard truths and striking realities. Russell is a vision in this movie, somehow remaining grounded and believable in an off-beat world. This was my first screen encounter with Edmonton-born Nathan Fillion, and while I can see how he could fit the bill as a tempting escape for Jenna, I wasn't as impressed with him as I thought I would be.

In one of the DVD features, Russell indicates that she decided to sign on to the project when she read one of the voiceover lines that comes near the end of the movie. It's wonderfully lovely, and though I can't quite do the line justice in blog form, it's still worth repeating here:

"Dear Baby, I hope someday somebody wants to hold you for 20 minutes straight and that's all they do. They don't pull away. They don't look at your face. They don't try to kiss you. All they do is wrap you up in their arms without an ounce of selfishness in it."

Waitress is a sweet comedy perfect for that lazy Sunday afternoon.