He collapses into a puddle of contrition at the feet of his wife.
Jenna (Keri Russell) is a waitress at Joe’s Pie Diner, and that’s all that’s
ordinary about this movie. In an odd mixture of sharply funny and oddly
sentimental exchanges the script is wonderfully unashamed of manipulating us.
Its public success is a salute to Adrienne Shelly who wrote, directed and acted
in it, and was murdered in her New York apartment shortly before its release.
But let’s start at the beginning.
Jenna (Keri
Russell) designs pies in her dreams. Led on by a slow, bubbling passion for the
color and texture of ingredients, she mixes them with cool confidence and names
them for the life moments that inspired them. These moments reflect the people
in her dismal life: a “miserable snake” of a husband, her two loyal, air headed
fellow waitresses, and the obstetrician who will deliver the baby she does not
want. If she can’t escape the controlling lout, Jenna will content herself with
making glorious pies.
Every time
husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto) roars up to the diner with his horn at full blast,
there is an intake of breath in the audience at that terrible symbol of control.
But Earl, the red neck brute who lives on the edge of violence, usually, but not
always, collapses into a puddle of contrition at the feet of his wife. Jenna, on
the other hand, is capable of soaring, of smiling, of dreaming; but when the
cards are stacked against her, she’s both a realist and a rock. Keri Russell’s
performance is perfect. She gives Jenna, a tart tongue, hope, and a
determination to grab at any part of her dreams that life might toss her way.
What’s tossed
is Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion), the married obstetrician who falls absolutely
in love with Jenna and joins her in comic romp of an affair in the doctor’s
office. The wonderful thing about all this is the certainty that because it is a
fantasy, we don’t have to spend a minute worrying about the consequences. Nathan
Fillion endows Dr. Pomatter with exactly the fey qualities the dear doctor
needs.
Andy Griffith
plays Old Joe, owner of the diner, who is devoted to his pie maker and delivers
his advice to her in barely disguised stories intended as life lessons. The
other waitresses - Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly) - hook up
with the dim but available men (Lew Temple and Eddie Jemison) in deliberately
overdone comedy. Just when any of this threatens to become one notch too silly,
Jenna pulls things back to reality, always inching toward her dream. How she
gets there delights the audience.
So there you
have it, a fantasy, a comedy, and some terrific acting. That tone could not have
been set without Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion who caught the full sense of
Adrienne Shelly’s script and played their parts straight – with a twist - in the
midst of equally good comic silliness. This contrast turns the film into a small
jewel.
Copyright (c) Illusion