Waitress proves a fitting tribute

By Nicola Dann
Entertainment reporter

When Waitress was shown at the Sundance Film Festival it was an instant audience hit.

Shelly (c) also plays Jenna's friend and fellow waitress

The film tells the story of a small town waitress called Jenna, who has a knack of making delicious pies.

Jenna is stuck in a dismal marriage but the story turns into a hilarious and unexpected love story when she falls pregnant.

But while the movie is a romantic comedy, the story behind it is tinged with tragedy.

The writer, director and one of the stars of the movie, Adrienne Shelly, was found hanging from a shower rod in her New York apartment last November. A construction worker has since been charged with her murder.

Now the cast are hoping Waitress will become a lasting legacy to her.

"What made her special to me was that she had a wonderful energy," says Nathan Fillion who plays love interest Dr Pomatter in the movie.

"She's a tiny little person, a tiny little girl with boundless energy. She was very easy to smile. There are people that have that energy about them that draws you in, and Adrienne Shelly was one of these people."

Keri Russell leads the cast as Jenna, and agrees.

Jenna, played by Russell (l), is the pie-making queen at Joe's Diner

"It's really difficult to make a movie like this for that amount of money in that amount of time.

"It's really hard to run a crew, and I don't even think she was five foot. She was this tiny little girl with a big presence and she ran that set, she ran all those guys. And she came out with this beautiful film."

Shelly had come to public attention as the star of Hal Hartley's first two films, The Unbelievable Truth and Trust.

A cult figure by the mid-1990s, she went on to direct three films of her own, of which Waitress was the third.

In the days before she died, she had been on tenterhooks waiting to hear if the movie had been accepted at the Sundance Film Festival.

Intertwined lives

Michael Roff produced the movie and thinks Shelly would be delighted at how well it has been received.

"We just talked and talked and talked about how exciting it would be to bring it to an audience, to drive by the studio lot and see a billboard, to see a poster for the first time, to watch a trailer in a theatre," he says.

Shelly also stars in the movie alongside Russell and Cheryl Hines, whose lives as waitresses are intertwined.

In promotional material for the film, Shelly said: "I think the movie has a really lovely heart and it roots for people to do the right thing in the end. I really like to put that kind of thing out in the world, that's important to me."

It is hard to remain unmoved by Waitress. After its standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival, audiences across the board have reacted in much the same way - laughing out loud one minute, but tissues at the ready the next.

"She would have been over the moon and I hope that somehow she sees it somewhere," says Roff.

Waitress is released in the UK on 10 August.