I'd like some of that 'Canadian Super Hero Pie'

NYTimes movie critic A. O. Scott said, "If 'Waitress' were more strenuously uplifting, it might be labeled a feel-good movie, but it isn’t that. It’s just a movie that leaves you feeling good."

Waitress (2007) is centered on Jenna (Keri Russell), a very unhappily married woman who works as a waitress at Joe's Pie Diner, making creative and delightful pies with quirky names. A theme throughout the movie is that she invents pie recipes with names that reflect things happening in her life, like "I Hate My Husband Pie" and "I Don't Want Earl's Baby Pie." Another running theme is her composition of letters to her unborn baby that reflect the anxiety and ambivalence about her pregnancy and her life.

It seems that Jenna only can really connect people who are moved by her pies. True appreciation of her pies = true appreciation of Jenna. Both Dr. Pomatter (with whom she has an affair) and Old Joe (in whom she finds an unlikely ally) have an almost spiritual connection to her baked goods. Since so much of Jenna's own emotions are tied into these creations--in fact, it is the only thing that brings her pleasure and it serves as an escape--they serve as a bridge from one person to the other. Seeing that something she loves is also loved by someone else makes her feel valued. And I think that really goes pretty far in describing what does connect people--shared joys, shared interests, an admiration for the work and creations of another.

As is often true, there are some things I take issue with in Waitress, but I'm not in the mood to go into them here. Because I want to convey that we both just really enjoyed this movie. It is a sad, funny, sweet, movie that really, really makes me want to have pie.

(There is one bizarre point I simply can't ignore, however. What the hell is going on with those atomic pies we see at the end of the movie!? How could that possibly happen? I was perfectly willing to roll with any other unlikely point in this movie, but I simply cannot accept that this same woman who made all these beautiful and brilliant pies we see up until that point would ever turn out concoctions that look like something from Marge Simpson's kitchen!)

Waitress movie site
Adrienne Shelley Foundation


Tangentially related, but no less interesting (to me):
Nathan Fillion, the Canadian which this blog title refers and the actor who plays Dr. Pomatter in Waitress, is also famous in geeky circles for playing Dr. Hammer, Dr. Horrible's nemesis on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Neil Patrick Harris stars as Dr. Horrible.

And someone who has regular TV can tell me if this new show with Fillion is any good: Castle, premieres March 9, ABC. It's the new "Moonlighting," or so ABC would have us believe. (They may, indeed have something there. Like Bruce Willis, Fillion has also played an action hero. See Dr. Hammer reference immediately above.)