Saturday, June 09, 2007

Ditch the Waitress

Here's a tip: don't go see the Waitress.

Marketed as a feel-good romance-ish independent film, I guess it might play that way for some people. The woman next to us in the theater said it was "the sweetest movie she had seen in a long time." But then again, maybe she's never been to a movie before.

Kerri Russel plays the titular Waitress. She's pregnant because her hated husband got her drunk and she accidentally had sex with him. Meanwhile, she falls deeply in lust with her new doctor, who she's seeing because, well, she's pregnant. He's married, too. I kept waiting for some moment of redemption where everyone would find happiness or at least stop destroying themselves. It sort of happens by the end, but not in a way that I found remotely satisfying.

The film itself is well done, well acted, well directed. But the story is unpleasant. It's hard to make a comedy about unlikeable people whining about how bad their lives are, and trying to make it better by having sex. Which, as it turns out, doesn't work. The only character I found engaging and likeable was the crotchety old man played by Andy Griffith, who keeps reading imaginary horoscopes to people that says things like, "Even though you have a snake of a husband, you shouldn't be cheating on him." It was good for a couple of laughs. Okay, I liked the guy who did spontaneous poetry, too.



Hey Lost fans... notice anything creepy about the doctor/lust interest? That's right! It's Ethan! Creepy, isn't it? He loves pregnant women, doesn't he? I suppose the sequel to the Waitress will take place on a mysterious island, where Ethan has whisked the Waitress away to bake pies for the Others. And she will keep having flashbacks to her life in the pie shop.

After the movie, Krista said, "Maybe we should have gone to Ocean's 13." Which is saying something, folks. Ocean's 13 is not on our movies-to-see list. My comment was simply, "That was unpleasant."

So I guess you all owe us a thank you. We took a bullet for you. We watched that thing so you don't have to. If you've been thinking about this movie, my suggestion would be that you go to some restaurant and watch the waitresses there for a couple of hours. Chances are good that it will be more entertaining than this movie.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language, thematic elements and because the rating people were hoping that children under 13 might be spared from being taken along to this movie and could perhaps live a happier life as a result.

2 comments:

  1. Hey, things could always be worse...you could have gone to Hostel II. From what I hear, you could have lost a lot more than just a couple of hours of your life. Consider yourself forewarned!

    (I don't like horror movies, but when secular movie critics start talking about throwing up in a movie theater because of its evil, you know it's not a good thing.)

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  2. Wow. So evil you throw up. That's pretty good.

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