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Waitress

I have a feeling all the positive reviews were from women, or at least modern feminists. Yes, it’s well made and acted, the characters are developed and the dialogue is witty for the most part, but…

• Character/Structure-Plot

Every guy in the movie is despicable or an idiot. Even the smallest male character, the spontaneous poet who weds the young waitress, is scary in the way he pursues her. That she ends up loving him only makes her look bad, too, not that he ends up looking good.

The love-interest doctor is the one decent and normal guy (from the movie’s POV) and he commits adultery without hesitation, without guilt and without a reason why he would do so when he has a wonderful and smart wife.

Then the end… the waitress snaps out of her funk when her new baby is announced as a girl. As if only a boy would remind her of the father or as if only a boy could look like the father. Or is the movie saying that an innocent baby boy will grow up to be a pig, regardless of parenting? (Yes, the last line is a bit paranoid, but I get that way when a scene a flaw is so ridiculous.)

• Logic

The movie is realistic in its portrayal of the waitress’ prison erected by her husband. She really seems trapped and he really seems like the kind of guy who would stop at nothing to keep her and control her. So it’s totally false for the husband to back down after the waitress merely verbalizes her hatred for him and the end of their marriage. He’s exactly the kind to return at some point and beat her up, or worse.

It’s not that the movie lets us imagine this possibility instead of showing it, it’s that the movie pretends it won’t happen, that showing him thrown out of the hospital room means the threat from him is over. What should happen, in order to stay true to the world created by the story, is for a character like the diner owner to put the husband out of commission (like, by hiring someone to beat him). If the story didn’t want to go in that direction, then the husband character should’ve been toned down…more of an emotional jerk and not a physical threat.

Keri Russell and Cheryl Hines talk about the story.

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