Boxoffice.com revew
Keri Russell gives a deft and winning performance as Jenna, a Southern gal who works as a server in Joe’s Pie Diner but who nurtures a poet’s heart. She expresses herself through novel pie recipes, an art she learned from her similarly inclined mother, and one she retreats to in Mitty-esque detail as both an escape from and a commentary on her disappointing life….Waitress is a real actor’s movie, with each part written with great elan to have its own psychology and even its own dialect. Each player gets to be fully dimensional and has bright and defining moments that crystallize into an affectionate if gently satirical ensemble portrait of a certain kind of working-class Southern-ness. It’s great fun to see Andy Griffith of all people try on a crusty character part; the mind has to reach back almost to the 1950s and his sinister portrayal of a Huey Long-like demagogue in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd to remember Griffith diverging so fully from Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, R.F.D. But every actor, including Shelly herself as Jenna’s geeky waitress pal Dawn, comes off well in this generous bear hug of a film, a sweet movie.
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