“Waitress” has splashes of comedy, drama, melancholy and wistfulness that suffuses it making it an appealing film even in the midst of the tragedy that surrounds it. Keri Russell plays Jenna a woman trapped in an abusive marriage with a difficult, horrible husband (Jeremy Sisto) only to find out that she’s pregnant with his child. She uses her baking skills as an escape from her corrosive marriage. Jenna’s gynecologist (Nathan Fillion, “Serenity”) falls in love with her and the two carry on an affair. A well made, thoughtful character study, “Waitress” would be a powerful film even if you didn’t know that the director/writer/actress Adrianne Shelly was murdered in November of 2006 and made to look like a suicide by her killer. Taken on its own terms out of the context of this tragedy, “Waitress” is a winning picture that showed a lot of potential for Shelly as a director and reminds us of a talent taken from us too soon. ---

Image & Sound:

I received a Fox studio screener which is the worst format to make a judgment on how a film looks/sounds on DVD. Why? Because they are burned by the studio on single layer DVD-R’s and, much like a homemade DVD, there are flaws that crop up that usually aren’t on the finished product because of the disc space. The colors are accurate with nice flesh tones but the film appeared a bit soft at times and the sound a bit subdued as well. That said, the film does look and sound decent although far from state-of-the-art for a recently made film. I do not have the final product to compare it to. ---

Since Shelly was killed before she had the opportunity to do a film commentary, we have producer Michael Roiff and star Keri Russell discussing the making of the film in a nice, reverent discussion on their experience working with the director. ***

“This is How We Made a Waitress Pie” is a making of featurette with some nice behind-the-scenes footage and comments on the making of the film from the stars. ***

“Written and Directed by Adrienne Shelly: A Memorial” is a short, affecting tribute to this talent actress and director focusing on her work in this particular film. ***

“Hi! I’m Keri, and I’ll Be Your Waitress” focuses on the actress in the lead role while “The Pies Have It!” features the cast discussing their favorite pies. We also get a number of Fox Movie Channel promos made for the film including “In Character With” featuring Russell, Fillion and Cheryl Hines. We also get a promo for the Adrienne Shelly Foundation a worthwhile non-profit organization set up in Shelly’s memories.

Final Words: