predictable pie

Waitress, starring Keri Russell, was the first of the Summer of ’07 cinematic food feasts. The story revolved around a pie-baking diner waitress, (Russell), and her struggle to find her place in the world. The movie serves up one of America’s most beautiful culinary inventions: home-style pies. Trouble is, these pies were anything but beautiful.
 
Why were these beautiful pies lit and shot in such a hideous manner? Was it to emphasize that the food was baked in anger? (Try I-hate-my-husband pie). But not all the film’s desserts were “angry pies” and yet even those baked with love looked unappetizingly yellow and soggy.
 
The plot was equally soggy. I have to wonder if Waitress was originally written as a made for tv movie. The plot was as predictable and the characters as shallow as a Lifetime movie of the week. Girl hates husband. Girl discovers she’s pregnant. Girl falls in love with Gynecologist. Girl gets out of bad marriage, comes into money, opens her own pie shop. The story is littered with subplots of secondary characters - or more accurately caricatures. Short order cook fools around in the kitchen with sexy waitress. Conflicted gynacologist kisses girl but returns to overly perky and pretty wife. And so forth.