Interview. Adrienne Shelly.

"Adrienne Shelly, whose brutal murder last year casts an uncomfortable pall over Waitress, was very much a student of Hal Hartley," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant. "Her tense compositional sense suggests someone else's influence, but in her ability to locate recognizable human feeling in zealously quirked settings is clearly a gift she learned from the man who launched her career with The Unbelievable Truth and Trust."

In 2000, Sean Axmaker spoke with Shelly about her second feature, I'll Take You There. "After the clever but mannered and unmistakably Hal Hartley-esque Sudden Manhattan, she was finding her own voice and it was worth hearing," he writes.

"Waitress makes palatable everything repellent about American independent movies of the Sundance smash type," writes Nathan Lee in the Voice. "There's a fine line between crowd-pleaser and crime against cinema, and to my mind this guileless romcom largely stays the course. Animated by actors enjoying their work, Waitress won me over with its modest ambitions and transparent decency. What can I say?"

Updated through 5/4.

"It appears to be a true reflection of her spirit - eccentric, good-naturedly feminist, kind of funny and kind of sentimental," writes Richard Schickel in Time. "Despite its realistic setting in a small Southern town, it is much more a fable than it is a slice of authentic life.... There's something spunky about those pies and there's something spunky about Waitress in general."

Stephanie Zacharek in Salon: "The picture's off-kilter rhythms ultimately keep it from being too treacly, and its spirit of optimistic negativity doesn't hurt, either: This is a movie about the just-getting-byness of life, but it's also about the way crap situations often contain threads of potential happiness, if you can just tease them out. Shot in candy-sprinkle colors by Matthew Irving, it feels vivid and alive."

"Part feminist fable, part romantic fairy tale, it is by turns tart and sweet, charming and tough, rather like its heroine and like Keri Russell, the plucky, pretty, nimble actress (still perhaps best known as Felicity, from the television coming-of-age melodrama of the same name) who plays her," writes AO Scott in the New York Times.

"Keri Russell's performance as Jenna must have made Shelly joyful; it's a flawless expression of the movie's sweet, smart soul," writes Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal.

Nick Schager, writing for Cinematical, finds Russell "nothing short of enchanting, in part because she refuses to paint Jenna with broad, simple brushstrokes.... And in a centerpiece sequence in which - having just taken the monumental first step toward independence - Jenna segues from a look of mouth-agape astonishment to grinning elation, she also proves to be, just like her mouthwatering pies, something close to irresistible."

"Because the movie is so hit-and-miss, I kept getting thrown out of it and returning to thoughts of its maker - of what must have been her busy inner life, her evident joy in making movies, and her potential, down the road, to develop an authentic American voice and make wonderful screwball farces," writes David Edelstein in New York. "I think of Waitress as an overstuffed, overcooked pie - too ungainly to eat all of, too generous to pass up, too heartbreaking to contemplate for long."

Brandon Harris: "It is not a great film and hardly aspires to be, and although its pleasures are only mildly satisfying, one leaves the theatre taken with its anonymous, working class southern milieu, deft production design and unwillingness to offer clichéd reassurances about the redemptive nature of love."

"I wanted Waitress to be better than it is," writes Marcy Dermansky. "Perhaps I am being unduly rough on a small, charming movie, but I'm a tough fan, loyal but still demanding." And a reminder: "The non-profit Adrienne Shelly Foundation has been set up in Shelly's name to help support the careers of women filmmakers."

"[T]heir obviously constructed surroundings contain - and in some ways mask - the characters' humanity, humor and decency, at least until Shelly's screenplay slow-draws it out with wit and charm and a kind of patience that feels as old-fashioned as the story's setting," writes Matt Singer at IFC News.

"The reluctant mom is an unusual and risky path, but Shelly pulled it off with her smart writing, fanciful direction and an inspired collaboration with the spirited Russell," writes Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times.

Anthony Kaufman is won over.

For the Reeler, Christopher Campbell, "an enormous Hal Hartley fan whose office wall is decorated with a poster featuring Shelly," attended the NYC premiere. "[T]here was no time to be sad during the screening, because Waitress is such a joyous piece of cinema - a celebration of food, love, maternity, ensemble acting and of course the wonderful talent that was Adrienne Shelly."

Earlier: "Sundance. Waitress." Update, 5/3: Eric Kohn, writing in the New York Press, finds that Waitress "suffers from a tonal clash, but it does manage a few disparate laughs along the bumpy road to a lackluster postmodern result."

Updates, 5/4: "Waitress floors you with its brave vulnerability," writes Katie Liederman for Nerve. "As syrupy as much of it may be, its ultimate impression is dark and bittersweet."

"When you watch Waitress, you're also watching a meta-movie about Shelly's brutal end, and the spirit that bursts from every corner of this overcrowded movie is so genuinely warm that trashing it feels like panning a so-so baton-twirling performance at the church talent show," writes Dana Stevens in Slate.

Posted by dwhudson at May 2, 2007 3:45 PM