In "Waitress," an internally feisty diner maid relies on her skill as a masterful creator of apparently "blissful" pies in order to combat her otherwise depressed life. Married to a weakling of an abusive husband, and working under the management of a snarly rodent of a boss, we find Jenna in the first scene having just peed on a plastic stick. Two pink lines. Blah blah blah. So begins the nine-month-long movie.
In a none-too-complex and "what?" inducing plot line, the film finds some success. Keri Russell is darling. Truly, the inconsistent double-negative (southern?) colloquial speak aside, she gives a sassy and credible performance. Far beyond that, however, the single most redeeming quality of this film is Andy Griffith (Andy Griffith?!) as stodgy Old Joe, who provides not only the true comic relief, but also the only out for our darling protagonist. His desire for orange juice without ice is, without question, the single most investing aspect of the plot.
Small successes aside, the film manages to be wholly depressing without inducing any genuine care for the characters. Jenna's husband Earl, played by Jeremy Cisto (Elton from "Clueless"...I liked him better in the 90's), wreaks through the screen of coors light and hot pockets, while Jenna blankly pacifies his need to control her. The film is awkwardly blatant in illustrating this point. He throws things and then kisses her pregnant belly. He tells her he loves her even though she's "fat." He insists that she promise to love him more than the damn fetus. It's disgusting, and yet, instead of palm-to-the-heart, head-shaking disgust for her situation, I instead found myself shaking my head for the bozo who would call this characterization subtle.
The goings-on in the film just don't make sense. I'm getting annoyed just writing about it. She sleeps with her married OBGYN. Upon seeing the baby, Jenna tells off her husband with zero repercussions. The pie metaphors sprinkled throughout resolve with Jenna and daughter Lulu in their diner-turned-pie shop (paid for with funds from a Saint-Peter's-Gates-bound Andy Griffith!) in the same town where she ditched her worthless husband and the well-intentioned Dr. Lover. It's absurd. Quite frankly, I wish Earl would have killed her.
Waitress Pie:
Day-Old Crust
3 c Moldy Blueberries
1 T My Blood
2 c condensed milk
12 c sugar
...Ah, hell, I don't know what else. I want to explain how hateful it all was, but it's not worth my lack of creativity. The only thing that makes it worse is that now I want a slice of something. Or to slice something period. Either way.
Monday, September 1, 2008
A case for contraceptives pie.
Waitress. This is a film that yanks on your heartstrings. If your heartstrings are easily persuaded by pie creation fantasies emboldened by piano-heavy musical interludes. While it worked in Das Boot, it falls flat here.
We open with an overhead shot of pie after pie after pie after pie after pie being created. We see bananas, we see berries, we see custard, we see crusts. And we see credits. While I'm sure preparing a pie has its virtues, sitting through these credits was boring. When the action begins in earnest, we are further disappointed as we realize we have mistakenly begun watching an adaptation of Steel Magnolias.
The protagonist, Jenna, works in a dinner that serves pies. Her only friends are her two fellow waitresses. They also serve pies. But Jenna makes the best pies. She also makes babies, it turns out. However, there's twist!
The twist is that her husband, Earl, is abusive. He drives up, honks his horn, hits her, and demands that she "make him feel like a man." Making him feel like a man is Southern, I presume, for making her have sex with him. And bake him pies.
So here she is. Doesn't like her husband much. Dreams about baking pies. She's pregnant. And she's utterly miserable. Like Sarah Palin, she decides that though she doesn't want the child, she'll have it anyway. Hey, things could be worse. She could be unwed.
Predictably enough she goes to see her doctor. To make a tediously long story short, she kisses him abruptly and then they have a lot of sex in his office during her check-ups. It's a classic romance in too many ways to count.
Meanwhile, one of her waitress friends marries a stalker named for the state of Oklahoma, the other neglects her invalid husband and starts banging the fry cook. None of this really makes sense, but we go along with it because we're enthralled by the voice over letters to the unborn child. And the pie preparation fantasies. Sort of like the Requiem for a Dream sequences in which they shoot up, except with pies.
Like an artist, Jenna mines her innermost emotions to develop pastries that knock the socks off her diner patrons. Heartbreak pie, I'm doing my gynecologist pie, lonely pie, and -- occasionally -- Chicken Soup for the Waitress' Soul pie.
I hardly have the energy to go on. Jenna then befriends the owner of the diner, a hilarious old man who does hilarious things like pretend to read her horoscope while actually just giving her advice about her predicament. Everyone says he's a mean, obstinate man with a heart of pure coal but we soon realize he's a teddy bear. We'll call him Miss Daisy, for short.
Anyway, she continues the affair with the doctor, then gives birth, then falls in love with the child she despised, then dumps her abusive husband, then finds out that Miss Daisy has conveniently died and left her several hundred thousand dollars, then dumps the doctor. Anyway, none of that really matters -- at least it didn't to me.
Then we see she and her daughter, Lulu, in yellow dresses walking away from the pie shop they built with love, determination, and $200,000 of Miss Daisy's money. Everything turns out real great. Except that instead of feeling satisfied, you feel as though you've been robbed of your time. And perhaps contemplate the similarity between the words pie and die.
We open with an overhead shot of pie after pie after pie after pie after pie being created. We see bananas, we see berries, we see custard, we see crusts. And we see credits. While I'm sure preparing a pie has its virtues, sitting through these credits was boring. When the action begins in earnest, we are further disappointed as we realize we have mistakenly begun watching an adaptation of Steel Magnolias.
The protagonist, Jenna, works in a dinner that serves pies. Her only friends are her two fellow waitresses. They also serve pies. But Jenna makes the best pies. She also makes babies, it turns out. However, there's twist!
The twist is that her husband, Earl, is abusive. He drives up, honks his horn, hits her, and demands that she "make him feel like a man." Making him feel like a man is Southern, I presume, for making her have sex with him. And bake him pies.
So here she is. Doesn't like her husband much. Dreams about baking pies. She's pregnant. And she's utterly miserable. Like Sarah Palin, she decides that though she doesn't want the child, she'll have it anyway. Hey, things could be worse. She could be unwed.
Predictably enough she goes to see her doctor. To make a tediously long story short, she kisses him abruptly and then they have a lot of sex in his office during her check-ups. It's a classic romance in too many ways to count.
Meanwhile, one of her waitress friends marries a stalker named for the state of Oklahoma, the other neglects her invalid husband and starts banging the fry cook. None of this really makes sense, but we go along with it because we're enthralled by the voice over letters to the unborn child. And the pie preparation fantasies. Sort of like the Requiem for a Dream sequences in which they shoot up, except with pies.
Like an artist, Jenna mines her innermost emotions to develop pastries that knock the socks off her diner patrons. Heartbreak pie, I'm doing my gynecologist pie, lonely pie, and -- occasionally -- Chicken Soup for the Waitress' Soul pie.
I hardly have the energy to go on. Jenna then befriends the owner of the diner, a hilarious old man who does hilarious things like pretend to read her horoscope while actually just giving her advice about her predicament. Everyone says he's a mean, obstinate man with a heart of pure coal but we soon realize he's a teddy bear. We'll call him Miss Daisy, for short.
Anyway, she continues the affair with the doctor, then gives birth, then falls in love with the child she despised, then dumps her abusive husband, then finds out that Miss Daisy has conveniently died and left her several hundred thousand dollars, then dumps the doctor. Anyway, none of that really matters -- at least it didn't to me.
Then we see she and her daughter, Lulu, in yellow dresses walking away from the pie shop they built with love, determination, and $200,000 of Miss Daisy's money. Everything turns out real great. Except that instead of feeling satisfied, you feel as though you've been robbed of your time. And perhaps contemplate the similarity between the words pie and die.
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