Waitress

Review in a Hurry:  Keri Russell can carry a movie! Director Adrienne Shelly's Waitress is exciting because of Keri's work, but lucky for audiences, there's a lot more to love to. A relatable story—pie chef gets pregnant and cheats on her no good husband—told with such confidence that it feels almost brand spanking new.

The Bigger Picture:  Making a good mint julep is an incredibly delicate and complicated task. The bartender is perpetually on a cliff. With too much sugar, the drink will be so sweet that it's hard to swallow. But when it's good, when all the elements are just right, oh, there's nothing like it.

In that way, director Adrienne Shelly was one heck of a bartender. Her movie Waitress is a perfect cocktail, a fantastical southern romance that offers the lightness of Amelie but never, ever floats off and becomes unraveled by its own gossamer quality like, say, Amelie. Waitress is whimsical—we get scrumptious close-ups on various pies, with Keri Russell offscreen, telling us what these pies are about in a deep southern drawl. But Waitress is dark and gritty—Kerri's character Jenna is pregnant and my, does she hate that husband of hers.

Now about that husband, who is my favorite player in this ensemble. Jeremy Sisto breathes new, spit-tinged life into an archetype character: the wife-beating, no good husband. He is almost, in fact, so entertaining that you don't want them to split up. But Shelly is wise. She sticks to the story, so we're able to curb our laughter and keep our hearts and eyes on the prize: a gorgeous, charming gynecologist (Nathan Fillion) who has eyes for Jenna.

Affairs are common in these parts. The other waitresses that work with Jenna—played with utter joy by Cheryl Hines and Shelly—aren't shy about passing their judgments. Sure, the dialogue that ensues is a bit much sometimes, like Mama's Family on juleps, but the whimsy works because of the bleak circumstances.

It would be easy to say that Keri Russell owns Waitress, that her luminous face, her luminous pies and her feisty demeanor put her effectively in the running to become Reese Witherspoon the Second. You'll also walk away with a rekindled admiration for Sisto, a yearning to see Hines do more indie work and a painful pang that director Shelly, who was murdered in Manhattan last year, won't be making any more movies this good—or at all.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  Waitress is so in love with itself, with its quirky southern characters, its pretty pies, its checkered tablecloth way of life, that it almost snubs the audience. Granted, Keri Russell is good, but this romantic comedy leans too much on its flaky, precious, delectable exterior. In essence, where is the, ahem, meaty filling?