Waitress

If only life were as easy as pie.

An audience hit at the Sundance Film Festival, Waitress serves up a sweet, sassy and delicious slice of life tale – as it reveals the power of friendship, motherhood and the willingness to take a chance. It’s the story of a small town woman who transforms her hopeless life into a hilarious and unexpected love story.

This vibrantly different romantic comedy is the final film from writer/director, Adrienne Shelly, who died in 2006 at the age of forty. In the title role, Keri Russell leads a dynamic cast as a diner waitress stuck in a lousy marriage whose only solace is baking out-of-this-world pies. When the awkwardly charming Dr Pormatter (Nathan Fillion) comes to town, she’s inspired to mix-master her life into something far more satisfying.

As a favourite waitress at Joe’s Diner, Jenna (Russell) is also a “pie genius,” naming her tantalising confections after the tumultuous events and emotions of her daily life. She’s hoping that one of her pastries, like her “Kick in the Pants” pie, might even change her life – if she can just win that $25,000 pie contest. But when Jenna discovers that she’s pregnant, she immediately bakes an “I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby” pie – a quiche of egg and cheese with a smoked ham centre. After all, her husband, Earl (Jeremy Sisto) is a jealous jerk who is essentially a child himself, and the last thing they need to do is start a family together. But the pregnancy eventually changes the course of events in her life, giving her an unexpected and newfound confidence via letters to her unborn baby.