September 2007 • Issue 404



Waitress

Shelley’s third feature is a small-town American fairy tale with a grip on the realities of working-class life. Jenna is a café waitress who dreams up and bakes wondrous life-enhancing pies. She gets on great with folk and they just love them pies. Café life is good, but Jenna wants out – to escape Earl, her jealous, boorish, bullying husband.

So she plans her escape – to win the pie bake in the big city to set herself up with a pie shop someplace else. Trouble is, one night Earl gets her drunk, insensible and pregnant. What’s more, he don’t allow her no money for herself and ain’t pleased when he finds she’s stashed away some of her tips. What’s a gal to do? Maybe fall for her obstetrician and ride off in his silver chariot?

There are surprising turns, café society is deftly drawn and Keri Russell is immensely likeable as Jenna. Tragically, writer-director Shelley, who plays the gauche Dawn, was murdered before the film’s US release. We’ve lost a gentle, quirky, very human storyteller.

Product information
written and directed by Adrienne Shelley
Star rating
****




Language Tools
Powered by Ultralingua

Join over 30,000 people just like you. Get e-mail updates about new content, action alerts, contests, and more!

other articles
FROM THIS ISSUE

Use my name
From Moldova and Nigeria, survivors tell their stories to Louisa Waugh.

Sex trafficking – the facts
The Facts

Robert B Zoellick
Robert B Zoellick has finally reached his Promised Land as World Bank President. What can we expect?

Meet the traffickers
Victor Malarek shines a light on people who sell people.

The Dusty Foot on the Road
The Dusty Foot on the Road

recently
IN THIS COLUMN

Adoration
A film about how far we know and trust others, and how other people make us who we are, partly through the stories we hear.

Precious
Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, directed by Lee Daniels

The White Ribbon
In a small village in Germany, just before the First World War, a doctor is severely injured when a hidden tripwire pulls down his horse.

Tulpan
Tulpan is the daughter of the only nearby family and Asa thinks he’s in love with her. Sadly for him, she doesn’t fancy Asa, whose ears, she says, are too big.

Vanishing of the Bees
An eye opening account of the truth behind the declining bee population

Goodbye Solo
Different in every way: Ramin Bahrani's brilliant Goodbye Solo.






Voices from the margins:

Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.

House of Hunger Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
Raised Voices video:
Atossa Soltani from Brazil on the Climate Change
Desmond Desai from South Africa on Corporate Power
Iranian Women Speak Out
Iranian women speak out
3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
Raised Voices audio:
Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
Vinayan from India on agriculture

Subscribe to NI now!