The characters of Waitress like pie though. And Jenna is like a pie genius. She invents a new pie*** like every day. Sometimes more than one a day! She works at a pie diner. I assume that's a southern thing. Then again, her doctor claims to have gone to a pie diner as a kid, and he's from Connecticut, so maybe it's just not a Detroit thing.
By the way, Jenna and her doctor? Totally having an affair. She's cheating her complete dick of a husband and he's cheating on his wife. A wife we really know very little about through most of the movie. But it's ok, because they're in love, or something. Why is that acceptable? You know what? I'm not getting into a discussion on morality here. It's not worth it. Not even a little.
Oh. And Jenna is pregnant. Don't worry, it's her husband's baby. She didn't get pregnant by some other guy or anything like that. Nothing like that. Which is almost a bit of a shame. Jenna's husband, Earl, might be one of the least likable characters that I have EVER seen in a movie. There is nothing even a little sympathetic about him.
This is how you can tell a movie wasn't made to appeal to you...in the first ten minutes, you hate every character you meet and everything that comes out of their mouths. And, as it goes on, you find pretty much every character unlikeable. That's okay though. This is not a movie made for the likes of me. Quite obviously. Though at about 53 minutes in, they played a Cake song. THAT was meant to appeal to me. I think. Really, though, that's the only thing that they film makers did to appease me. Jerks.
Nathan Fillion had a few moments where his character was clever or enjoyable. A few traits that were fun. Even he couldn't shine through in this one though. You know who could? Friggin Matlock dude. Matlock was the only remotely likeable character in the whole movie. He gets the cranky old man role. The cranky old man who turns out to be a big softy. It's kind of like the hooker with the heart of gold, you know? Good job Matlock.
Old Joe: Are you with child?
Jenna: Shush!
Old Joe: I saw that look on a woman's face before. Her name was Annette. I made sweet sweet love to her all through the summer of 1948, and she had that look on her face all through the fall.
Waitress kind of feels like it's going for that kind of quirky Amelie vibe. I could be reading it all wrong, but that was what I was left with. And who can blame it? Amelie was a fun little movie. It had spunk. Waitress does not have that same spunk. There are a few laughs to be found in the movie, but not as many as I might have hoped for.
Like I said though, I'm not the intended demographic for Waitress, so that I didn't like it in the end isn't exactly surprising or anything. I'm ok with that. This is a movie that has an audience out there. It's just not an audience of me.
*Or, held off until tomorrow, since tomorrow IS pie day...well, pi day. 3.14
**I do like pi though.
***Hooray for pi!
4 comments:
The only things in this review that I agreed with: Earl is a jerk and Andy Griffith rocked! My daughter had to drag me to this movie. I don't like movies or books or television shows that seem to have the theme "if your life sucks, have an affair: that will fix anything and everything". I thought this was going to be one of those movies. WRONG!!! I liked the characters (except Earl) and I'm glad that Jenna found what she was looking for (even though she didn't know what she was looking for). I'm sorry it isn't your thing, but we loved it.
I'm glad to hear that. I know that a lot of people liked it. Maybe I'm in the minority on it. And if that's the case, then so be it. I went into the movie not knowing much about it and having really only heard good things about it. In the end, just about everything about it turned me off.
It just seems like there were no real consequences to anyone's actions. Earl was an ass, and Jenna left him, sure. But that was sort of the basic premise from the beginning. It's not like she was happy at the start of the movie and then decided to leave.
Dr What's-his-name cheats on his wife with a patient and in the end...he gets a cookie. It may have been a tart. It was a baked snack.
Jenna ends up happy in the end. She gets a kid, a butt-load of money, a restaurant and she gets rid of Earl.
It's an amazing lack of consequences all around. Everyone does bad things and ends up happy in the end for some reason.
I'll be honast, I like this movie.. but I think I liked it best when she was writing to the baby: " Dear damn baby, If you ever want to know the story of how we bought your damn crib, I will tell you." That and some of the names of the pies were pretty fantastic.
Waitress wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed it, and regret that a murderer robbed us of seeing more of writer-director Adrianne Shelly- who also played the spectacled waitress pal.
Nathan Fillion gets to show off his charm here, and damn if those pies don't look good. I reviewed it a while back and I can understand not liking it- it's twee and doesn't try hard to be liked.
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