Waitress: "Diabetic Coma Pie"

**Spoiler Alert** Think: Como Agua Para Chocolate meets The Nanny. I just got around to seeing the well-reviewed film, Waitress, and I'm not entirely sure it holds up to the hype. An uber-cool sociology student in my knitting class recommended that I see the film because of its counter-cultural presentation of motherhood. So, I headed off to the Quad cinema. The first 3/4 of the film is a combination of sweet Southern suffering as Jenna, the protagonist, is crushed under the weight of an oppressive marriage and the knowledge that she is pregnant. Her husband is infantile, controlling, and at times, abusive. In retaliation, Jenna bakes pies for the pie diner she works at. Jenna's power comes both from her love of baking and the names she gives her pies. The creamy (and sometimes mildly disgusting confections) have names like "Leave My Husband Pie" and "Bad Baby Pie", all inspired by what Jenna is thinking or feeling. Her great plan, to win a pie bake-off and leave her husband for good, is spoiled by the fact that she is pregnant. The film features many shots of Jenna watching other mothers, horrified by the children and their behavior. She tells her Ob-gyn that she is not happy about having the baby and does not want to be congratulated. Each ensuing month of the pregnancy, Jenna becomes more and more miserable as she moves closer to being stuck in her life forever. The children she observes are bratty and wildly out of control. The mothers are long suffering. In short, the only real happiness in the film comes from baking pies, the friendships Jenna finds at the restaurant, and "love" as all three waitresses embark on new relationships. For Jenna, that includes a fling with her doctor. And here we arrive at the two parts of the movie that serve, ultimately, as its demise. The affair with Dr. Pomatter is destined for failure and serves as nothing more than a creamy and dangerous confection (think: diabetics eating "Falling in Love Chocolate Pie"). The class and education differences, along with the fact that Pomatter is "happily" married (that is, not facing any of the challenges Jenna faces in her own marriage), are early clues that the relationship will end badly. In a none-too-hidden inspiration from Como Agua Para Chocolate, Jenna's pies make her wildly attractive to Dr. Pomatter. And then the movie ends with Jenna giving birth and falling, instantly, in love with her baby. A deus ex machina ending arrives and she is given a financial gift from one of her regulars at the diner that allows her to leave her husband. She buys the old pie diner, spruces it up, and lives the matriarchal fantasy of loving baby and making pie. It's some kind of Lesbos (without the sex) paradise with pie. I can't help but compare it to Sherrybaby, the heart-achingly real portrayal of poverty, abuse, and motherhood. Waitress is too unrealistic, and too over-the-top sweet to really deliver any compelling commentary about motherhood and the ways in which women continue to struggle with social roles and expectations. Waitress suggests that in the end, all mothers really do want to be mothers, really will love mothering, and will be somehow naturally fantastic at it. Some mothers love their roles. Some mothers are fantastic at mothering. Some women really, really do want to be mothers. And others? Call it "Big Liar Pie".