Waitress came into my life a few
years ago when I became fast friends with Sara
Freeman. I discussed very lightly with her some of my favourite
movies over an email once and she brought this movie up. I was
curious to view it someday, and I finally got around to that
recently. I couldn't have fallen more head over heels in love. There
are a lot of reasons why I adore this movie, but the signature reason
is it's unbridled love for women, their struggles, the place they
carve out in the world, and the reliance and support they give one
another in times of need while still loving each other enough to
disagree. The centrality of women in this picture is more than just
refreshing, it's invigoratingly pure in what it can represent for
women in cinema.
The film is framed around
the struggles of one normal, American woman in the deep South whose
one true passion is making pies. Jenna (Keri Russell) deals with an
abusive husband and an unexpected pregnancy, and while her life seems
to be in a rut she's always reaching towards breaking free from her
bad marriage and constricting day to day existence. She dreams of
romance, as we all do, and shortly after becoming pregnant she meets
a doctor (Nathan Fillion) who she gives her something resembling
compassion and love. On paper this seems like a typical cliche
romantic comedy, but director Adrienne Shelly isn't interested in men
in this picture, and she doesn't give you the ending of a prince
charming running away and saving Jena's life. That would be far too
rote for a picture of this magnitude in the place of Women's Cinema.
Waitress is about one
woman above all else, and the choices she makes along the way to save
her own life. She's an artist first and foremost, and she has modest
dreams of opening her own pie shop. The film beautifully gives Jenna
a "happy place" of imagining the creation of pies whenever
she is dealing with her oftentimes difficult life. She's friendly
with everyone around her by making them unique pies to suit the
specific situation, and overall she just seems like a genuinely good
person. When Jenna becomes pregnant it actually gives her life the
push she needed to break way from her husband who is anything, but
loving in the way she is. He is destructive, smothering, and needy
above all else. Her friends are with her along the way as they guide
her and give her emotional support even with their own life problems.
The back and forth they have is rich, and filled with compassion
towards one another, and feels accurate to the back and forth in day
to day friendships between women.
Jenna has no connection with
the fetus inside of her, but she begins to formulate plans to get
away. In the triumphant final moments of the picture she finally
takes complete control of her life, and flatly tells her husband
she's leaving him. She's taking her daughter and going very far away,
and if he ever comes back into her life there would be consequences.
Fuck yeah. Importantly though, Jenna also doesn't want anything else
to do with the man she had been sleeping with during the pregnancy as
both of these men are blurred out in one of the best images in the
film with a clear focus on Jenna and her newborn daughter Lulu. She
eventually rides out of the hospital with her two best girlfriends
beside her, and her newborn daughter.
The epilogue is what cements
the movie as a personal favourite though, as it showed the type of
love she had for her piemaking with her daughter. When Jenna
discussed her childhood earlier in the film she talked about making
pies with her mother, and remarked on it being the happiest times of
her life. She wanted to do the same for her daughter, and there's a
wonderful callback that shows Lulu and Jenna creating pies in her
kitchen in the new restaurant she opened. Which she lovlingly dubbed
"Lulu's Pies". Jenna did it, she carved out a place for the
life she wanted. It's meager, and modest, but it's hers. She's an
artist with a venue, she has all the people in her life she needed,
and all the love in her life was filled up by a daughter. It's a feel
good ending for sure, but it feels completely earned, because of
Jenna's struggles. Good things should happen to good people.
Waitress more than
anything else represents the kind of optimism that should be able to
be found in Cinema. It's pleasant cinema, but it completely
accomplishes it's goals of creating investment around Jenna's journey
to self realization by showing just how hard she fought to get where
she is at today. It also subverts a few of the romantic comedy
trappings that befall the genre by having her choose herself in what
feels closer to a Broadcast News kind of ending rather than
your run of the mill love triangle narrative. There needs to be more
movies like this, and there needs to be more of a place in cinema for
women to hone their craft, because the world needs more films like
Waitress. Cinema needs films with this much humanity. We need
an Adrienne Shelly.
I'd like to take a moment
now to bring up the Adrienne
Shelly foundation. Before this movie was released in cinema
Shelly was tragically murdered, and cinema lost a vibrant, important
young voice. That tragedy will never be erased, but you can honour
her memory by donating or supporting the foundation that was created
in the aftermath of that senseless crime. The foundation's goal of
supporting Women in film is one that I greatly agree with, as this
blogs entire goal this year is to bring to light films directed by
women. So please check out the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, her
movies, and more films directed by women.
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