How Sweet it is!!!

"Waitress" is the kind of movie where you know where it's headed and you kinda know the conclusion but it does it in such an enjoyable way you don't even care. I loved "Waitress", I saw flaws in it but it didn't seem to matter in the long run, the late director Adrienne Shelley has crafted a warm hearted comedy that is rarely made in today's world, there was something very comforting and almost old fashioned about it that's hard to resist.

Keri Russell stars in a career making performance as a hard luck waitress who is married to a no good insensitive brute but has a saving grace in creating very creative pie recipes. The pies kinda illustrate her feelings and sometimes current moods. The movie opens with Russell's character discovering she's pregnant, this happened one night when her husband got her drunk cause normally she detests sleeping with him. The fact that she's pregnant puts a damper on her plans, it's just another thing keeping her from leaving her husband and starting a new life.

Things begin to change for her when she meets the handsome new doctor in town (the underrated Nathan Fillion) who starts treating her nice. The two soon begin having an affair and for a moment it seems everything in her life is perfect, there is even a sequence where Russell is walking around with a bright happy smile on her face. But things start to fall apart when we are reminded that the handsome young doctor is married.

Adrienne Shelley has created one of those picture perfect worlds where people are all kind and understanding and no one (except maybe Russell's husband) is out to hurt anybody. Shelley herself and Cheryl Hines create great support has Russell's co-workers and best friends each of whom have their own subplot that are delightful. The scene stealer of the film is Any Griffith playing the cranky owner of the diner the girls work in but of course we learn isn't all that cranky after all.

This film is about finding happiness and a lot of the scenes I saw in it rang true. There is one scene where Russell asks someone if he is happy, and he honestly says back "happy enough". There is a lot of truth in the dialogue and a lot of warmth, this is a happy movie because it's about people trying to find happiness where ever it comes.

Sometimes it felt like these characters were too good to be true and the diner and Russell's pies weren't at all realistic. I could go on about how that bothered me but it didn't really, I love it when movies make up places that transport us and for a moment make us forget about our troubles and spend it with some really good decent people. Of course everyone knows the sadness about Shelley's death but we should be grateful that she was able to share this little piece of happiness with us, we should all be that lucky in our lives.