the point?
Whats the point of making this movie? I just saw it today, but dont got anything out of it...
shareIt was all about having the power to change your situtioan. Jeana felt trapped her marriage and didn't think she could do anything the change it espcially after she finds out she is going to have a baby. But after having an affair with the docotor she realizes she can be happy and have what she wants. It was a pretty typical and predicatable story of self discovery.
shareWell, actually, no.
Self discovery is a process of personal growth. Waitress is about capitulation. It is about accepting one's fate.
Jenna might have felt trapped and powerless, but an escape from her life was her goal from the start. Unfortunately, she lacked the courage of her convictions and she sabotaged her own efforts. (She didn't defend herself, she did not ask for help from her friends, she did not hide her escape money where Earl could not find it, she did not have an abortion when pregnant to a man she loathed, etc, etc, etc.)
Jenna is a passive charachter who does not evolve as a person during the film. In the beginning of the film she was a waitress in a pie shop and her objective in life is to keep Earl happy. In the end of the film she is a waitress in a pie shop and her objective in life is to keep Lulu happy. (Sure, she owns the pie shop now (she did not earn it, Matlock just gave it to her), but the shop is called Lulu's Pie Place (or something like that) and Jenna is still wearing a waitress uniform.)
Waitress is a story of a woman who starts out as a servant, submits to an affair, learns how to fake a smile and ends as a servant with a fake smile.
The other plots with the other waitresses correlate with Jenna's story: they both passively ride out their own lives.
It is possible that the intention of the makers was to make Waitress a film about transcendence. Instead, they made a film about transgression.
The whole film was just a poorly written, depressing and slightly misogynistic mess. I can not understand the high rating.
It has a high rating because the people who voted for it mostly liked it a lot.
I personally don't agree with your interpretation. We are both entitled to our opinions.
Gotta go. Kisses.
Well, thank you, mtm63, for clearing that whole rating thing up for me. And even bigger thanks for letting me have an opinion. You are very helpful and not at all patronising nor passive-aggessive.
All sarcasm aside, I would love to hear other readings of the film. I'm sure the OP would like to hear them as well.
There are some positive interpretations in the boards, but they aren't really supported with any arguments. They are merely statements like "It's a fairy tale" or "It's about the triumph of the human spirit". Those statements might be true, but you have to say why. Show your work. How is Waitress about the triumph of the human spirit? If it is a fairy tale (or technically a parable, I guess), what is the moral of the story?
Yeah, you're not at all passive-aggressive yourself there. And yours is an opinion, not a fact either, which most people, and not just here, disagree with you btw.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/waitress/
Anyway, moving on. The movie is fairytale based, as it operates within the parameters of a fairytale.
Jenna has a simple life that becomes a tragic and horrible trapped married life. She tries to escape, but is unsuccessful. Her affair with Dr. Pomatter allows her the chance to escape while still tapped inside the life she leads. This provides Jenna with a new world view, and renewed self-esteem. This feeling of empowerment enable Jenna to truly escape her entrapment. She meets her "true love/knight" in the form of her daughter, and thus "slays the dragon" which is Earl by telling him to get out of her life forever. Then for her bravery she has the check from Old Joe "fairy godmother" which turns her into a princess with her very own "kingdom" which is her own pie shop. And they lived happily ever after, because we see Lulu is a toddler, but they are clearer not bothered by Earl anymore.
I've looked everywhere and can't find a self-inking stamp that says, "Find him and kill him"
Thanks for the link to Rotten tomatoes. I've completely forgotten about that site. The audience tomatometer score is much closer to a fitting rating for this film. "It could happen to you", the Nicolas Cage - Brigdet Fonda film from 1994, was listed as a similar film. It has better acting, better writing, better everything. It should have a better rating than Waitress. It doesn't.
There is something wrong with the world.
Thanks as well for the short structural analysis. I have to point out that you didn't really say what the film is about. That was the original question: what is Waitress about? What is the point of Waitress? You say it is a fairy tale, (I would like to say that a parable would be a more appropriate term, as fairy tales should have some supernatural element) but what is the moral of the fairy tale and how did you come to that conclusion.
(Sure, many fairy tales have no deeper message in them. These are often rightly considered to be rather poor fairy tales. I would imagine that they would get a poor rating in the Internet Fairy Tale Database. But what do I know.)
There are now wrong answers in post-structural analyses. There can be poorly argumented ones.
Nice of you to notice my passive-aggressiveness, but I sort of exposed it as a sarcastic joke. By spelling out the word 'sarcasm' in the next paragraph.
So... yeah.
Sorry, if it offended you, third person.
But, then again, postmodernism means never having to say you're sorry.
The point of a film? I didn't really feel the need to explain the point of the film. You have your view, and the OP hasn't even been back here to say anything.
What's the point of Old School , Grandma's Boy , Road Trip , or the direct to video American Pie movies? What's the point Larry the Cable Guy?
I could explain what I feel the point of this film is, but really would it change your opinion? Or the OPs? Probably not, so I'd rather just save myself the time. People have their views, and that's the way it goes.
Nice of you to notice my passive-aggressiveness, but I sort of exposed it as a sarcastic joke.
Just for your information: Your sentence structure didn't really suggest that you were being sarcastic about your own passive-aggressiveness, more that someone else "allowing" you to have your own opinion. I saw where you said English isn't your first language, so I thought I'd point that out just to let you know.
I'll also tell you one of my pet peeves: people behaving like jackasses online simply because of the anonymity the internet allows.
Now I see in this instance that wasn't your intention, but it did originally come off that way.
I've looked everywhere and can't find a self-inking stamp that says, "Find him and kill him"
You are very welcome!
Seriously--if you understand the rating system, why say you don't understand why it's highly rated? Just come in and give your opinion.
Sorry...people coming in and asking that is a pet peeve of mine.
Gotta go. Kisses.
No need to apologise. It is good to have a pet peeve. I guess mine is irrational ratings.
What I meant was that I can not understand that the film has received high ratings from so many people, as the film is mediocre at best. I thought I said that implicitly in my first post. Then I thought you were joking, so I gave a similar sarcastic response, but now I'm not so sure about the joking anymore. But as a positive side not, you seem to cherish sarcasm as much as I do, so a sincere hooray for sarcasm.
Sincere hooray!
English isn't my first language, so I'm always a bit insecure about what I write. I'm not sure if what I've written is actually read to mean what I meant. It also works the other way around. The small nuances are sometimes lost, misunderstandings happen and the insecurity grows.
Discussion boards do not really help in getting rid of this insecurity.
I would not have known that English is a second language for you.
There is no explaining personal likes and dislikes. I watched the film because Nathan Fillion was in it, but liked it very much. I saw a lot of growth in Jenna.
The biggest quibble I have with your opinion is when you said:
her objective in life is to keep Earl happy
Her goal in life is to not get beaten (and to get away from the beater). She tries not to piss him off, not to make him happy. That would have been a very different film.
It also matters very much that she owns the shop. She *loves* making pies. She's no servant. "Matlock/Joe" as fairy godmother made her dream of the pie shop come true, but her child made her find the strength to toss Earl out of her life-*before* she got the check.
The writer-director wrote this after having her own child (Lulu in the film is her real life daughter). She had her own doubts and fears about having a child, and experienced the life changing reaction to her child just as Jenna did.
Also, escaping from an abuser...not so easy as you might think. When the film first came out, there were posts from women who had experienced this kind of thing. It is heartbreaking to hear these stories (or read about them, or know someone).
I don't always understand how some films (or TV shows) are so popular or highly rated either, but such is life. I saw it four times in the theater and twice on an airplane. I enjoyed it just as much the last time as the first. I also own it on DVD.
Discussion boards do not really help in getting rid of this insecurity
ROFL...trust me...being a native speaker would not matter. Without voice inflections, etc., the written word is always going to engender misunderstanding.
Yes, I was being sarcastic. Altho', one never knows when a poster just doesn't know how it works...
Gotta go. Kisses. share