Every time I read a poem by “Forough” I thought “You can have absolutely no idea who wrote this poem but still bet your life that the poet certainly was a woman”. Adrienne Shelly’s Waitress is one of those few examples, impossible for a man to be the creator of.
A humble, honest, low-budget but impressively stylish film, a romantic satire (the genre “romantic comedy” was previously hijacked by the bulk of senseless, stupid blockbusters so I’m not going to abuse this great movie by assigning it to that notorious genre) about a simple girl called Jenna (marvelously played by stunningly beautiful Keri Russell who remarkably looks like Nicole Kidman but a bit cuter and a lot warmer!) working as a waitress in a modest Pie Shop in a small city. Jenna is not just a waitress but in fact, is the brain behind all those twenty something variety of the pies on the menu as well as a new Pie-of-the-day she creates every single day, inspired by daily events in her rather miserable life.
Although we do not have the privilege of tasting any of those seemingly appetizing pies that take the centerpiece of this film, we actually don’t need to. The movie has been made so deliciously beautiful and so delightfully witty that I doubt it would be any less tasteful than any of those scrumptious pies would possibly taste like.
Apart from the style, Waitress is also truly earthy and surprisingly non-judgmental piece of work. Where almost every character in the story leads a stupendously boring and somehow pitiful life, it is considered absolutely no one’s fault. Even the darkest character of the film which is Jenna’s controlling and rather crazy husband, whom is a big inspiration for quite a lot of pies indeed, is much more pathetic than sinister.
More interestingly, Shelly portrays her main character as a girl who cheats on her husband with her married gynecologist while she is pregnant with the baby she genuinely hates while stunningly does not let the audience judge Jenna, even for a split of a second.
In fact, I’ve encountered a few stories in which one could understand and connect to all characters this easily, as eating a piece of pie!
Finally, for the bitter-sweet this movie was, I would found the ending a little too perfectly sweet for my taste, but giving the bitter ending of the brilliant and talented writer/director of this splendid film, I’m afraid to say that in general, all has been too ironically balanced!
Adrienne Shelly might not share Forough Farokhzad’s distressingly bitter views of the world, quite contrary her movie is filled with hope and optimism, but they surly shared the same tragic destiny indeed, when their fruitful lives come to an end, much too quickly.
As tragic as it is, she left the scene with an intimate, clever, giftedly crafted movie which guaranties that she would be missed, even by those who never knew her in person, such as me.
Rest in piece girl...
