Opening

86% Star Trek Into Darkness May 16
22% Erased May 17
90% Frances Ha May 17
44% The English Teacher May 17
42% Black Rock May 17
77% Pieta May 17
—— Populaire May 17
21% 33 Postcards May 17

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78% Iron Man 3 $72.5M
50% The Great Gatsby $50.1M
47% Pain & Gain $5.0M
37% Peeples $4.6M
77% 42 $4.6M
56% Oblivion $4.1M
69% The Croods $3.6M
98% Mud $2.5M
8% The Big Wedding $2.5M
60% Oz the Great and Powerful $1.1M

Coming Soon

—— The Hangover Part III May 23
79% Fast & Furious 6 May 24
—— Epic May 24
94% Before Midnight May 24

Waitress (2007)

tomatometer

88

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 165
Fresh: 146 | Rotten: 19

Sweet, smart, and quirky, Waitress hits the right, bittersweet notes through this romantic comedy through its witty script and a superb performance by Keri Russell.

90

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 42
Fresh: 38 | Rotten: 4

Sweet, smart, and quirky, Waitress hits the right, bittersweet notes through this romantic comedy through its witty script and a superb performance by Keri Russell.

audience

67

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 396,842

My Rating

Movie Info

Trapped in a miserable marriage and blessed with the ability to transform her misery into delicious desserts, a small-town waitress finds her life forever changed by an unplanned pregnancy. Every day, Jenna (Keri Russell) ties on her apron and serves her customers with a smile, and every night she goes to bed knowing that she is one step closer to the day that she can kiss her scarily domineering husband (Jeremy Sisto) goodbye forever. A smart and sassy baker whose extraordinary pies are

PG-13,

Drama, Romance, Comedy

Adrienne Shelly

Nov 27, 2007

$18.7M

Fox Searchlight Pictures - Official Site External Icon

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Cast

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All Critics (170) | Top Critics (43) | Fresh (150) | Rotten (20) | DVD (16)

Waitress is not a perfectly cut, factory-line Safeway-brand slice. It does, though, serve up a generous deep-dish portion, homemade and heartfelt, that leaves a sweet taste goes down.

November 28, 2007 Full Review Source: Film.com
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Shelly's film (regrettably her last) may be a fine folly for foodies. But as a fable of female empowerment, it seriously lacks flavor.

June 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
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This bittersweet romantic farce teeters and then tips into precious, a forgivable sin once you know this sweet movie's sad history.

May 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
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While Shelly's film trades in an especially outrageous form of girl-movie self-consciousness, she's completely sincere when it comes to making her heroine the irresistible repository of our sympathies.

May 11, 2007 Full Review Source: Toronto Star
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This is an ensemble piece in which everyone is allowed to shine.

May 11, 2007 Full Review Source: Seattle Times
Seattle Times
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Russell is the magic ingredient that holds all this together.

May 11, 2007 Full Review Source: San Jose Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Adrienne Shelly's lasting legacy is this exquisite, engaging film about slices of life, Keri Russell's luminosity, an unhurried narrative, Andy Griffith's codger delighting in schadenfreude and even Jeremy Sisto making his abhorrent character relatable.

November 22, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com
Suite101.com

Allergic as I am to quirkiness, I was won over

August 27, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion
CinePassion

... Fillion offers up an endlessly charismatic performance...

August 14, 2009 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews
Reel Film Reviews

Adrienne Shelly's last piece has all the right ingredients.

August 28, 2008 Full Review Source: ReelzChannel.com

full of whiney characters that eventually make the right decisions only after an unprecedented amount of hand-wringing

August 17, 2008 Full Review Source: 7M Pictures
7M Pictures

It's a love letter of the first degree, the kind that rises out of trepidation and confusion, almost by accident, with a sudden force of absolute clarity.

June 9, 2008 Full Review Source: Paste Magazine
Paste Magazine

(...) Si por algo será recordada esta película, lamentablemente, es por la trágica muerte de su directora y libretista Adrienne Shelly (...)

April 8, 2008 Full Review Source: Uruguay Total
Uruguay Total

Waitress is a beautiful and poignant swan song for what should have been the vanguard of a blossoming career.

February 28, 2008 Full Review Source: Colorado Springs Gazette
Colorado Springs Gazette

Keri Russell sparkles in this story about a piemaker who longs for something more filling.

February 2, 2008 Full Review Source: Cinema Sight
Cinema Sight

Completely inauthentic in every detail--the cinematic equivalent of an apple pie from Perkins.

December 11, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Snobs
Film Snobs

Despite Shelly's twist of disturbing fate, WAITRESS will be a memorialized nod of a little gem of a film that delivered a slice of pie to our hungry, entertaining expectations

December 6, 2007 Full Review
Movie Eye

I dare you to sit through Waitress and not fall for Russell.Her face is open like a baby's and sculpted like a goddess'.

December 6, 2007 Full Review Source: Bangitout.com
Bangitout.com

A sweet-as-pie comedy that just happens to have a sprinkle of romance.

December 5, 2007 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
Movie Metropolis

It's a small movie set in a small town, and features actors who were most famous for parts on the small screen. And it also just happens to be one of the more entertaining movies of the year.

December 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Three Movie Buffs
Three Movie Buffs

Nothing can distract from the inherent joy of experiencing this undeniably tasty creation.

November 29, 2007 Full Review Source: Metromix.com
Metromix.com

Audience Reviews for Waitress

Waitress is a charming, gentle, often dark yet extremely quirky comedy. It feels even darker since the subsequent murder of its writer/director/supporting actor Adrienne Shelley who didn't live to see the film's release. Anchored with a lovely, subtle sad eyed performance by the beautiful Keri Russell and a cast of terrific comedic prodigy actors, including the great Andy Griffith in his last film appearance as the crusty diner owner. It's a singular, meaningful and poetic comedy, despite its light touch and tone.

It's the apparently simple story of Jenna, small town southern waitress, with a god given talent for creating original and delicious pies. Stuck in a horrible marriage with an idiot husband, Jenna's saving money so she can bolt - until she finds out she's pregnant. She falls into a hopeless intense affair with a married young doctor, played with customary charm and intelligence by TV's own Cary Grant, Nathan Fillion. That's about the whole story, the stakes keep getting raised higher as the doctor and the waitress carry on an increasingly steamy affair just as her belly gets bigger and her husband gets more demanding and abusive.

The pies are a terrific touch, because the recipes are thematically related to the beats of the story (i.e. I hate my husband pie, crushed lumpy oatmeal and sour cherries, etc.). The making of the pies is shot gorgeously and, amazingly this device never gets tired.

I forced myself to watch this, because on paper, it looks like a cliched, gratuitously offbeat comedy full of faux folksiness and bad southern accents. It's far better than that. Director Shelley and Cheryl Hines play her fellow waitresses with verve and spunk, and Jeremy Sisto as the abusive husband may be stupid, but he's an identifiable human being, not a cliched villain, who evokes our empathy, even as we are rooting for Jenna to get the hell out of the marriage.

On the DVD extras, the cast all rhapsodize about Shelley's having such a clear vision of what she wanted and how she was a control freak for every aspect of this production. That is palpably true, and it's a tragedy that she didn't get to make more films. See this one, you'll be happy.
April 6, 2013
Josh Morris

Super Reviewer

Our world needs a few feel-good movies, and 'Waitress' fits the bill. Earl (why are Southern bad guys always called Earl?) needs to be taught a lesson, and Jenna finds a way to accomplish that.
July 16, 2012
Redlats

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Jennas Kuchen (Waitress) (DE)
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