Keri Russell, Cheryl Hines and Lew Temple in Fox Searchlight Pictures'

Waitress

Starring: Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, Adrienne Shelly, Eddie Jemison

Directed by: Adrienne Shelly

RS: 3of 4 Stars

2007 Fox Searchlight Pictures All Movies

This sweetheart of a comedy boasts a hilarious and heartfelt performance by Keri Russell as Jenna, a small-town waitress who gets pregnant by her abusive husband, Earl (Jeremy Sisto), and expresses her feelings through pastry, like her Pregnant-Miserable-Self-Pitying-Loser pie. Can Jenna ditch Earl and find love with her OB-GYN (Nathan Fillion)? Her two waitress pals, Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Adrienne Shelly), think she can. In her third film as director and writer, Shelly scores a personal triumph. It's impossible to ignore the tragic fact that last November, at age forty, Shelly was murdered. It is some solace, though, to know that Waitress is her buoyant legacy.