This weekend I went to see the film Waitress knowing very little about it beforehand. I had seen a trailer. I'd seen Kerri Russell in The Upside of Anger, so I knew she could act. I'm a fan of Nathan Fillion from Firefly... so I thought why the heck not.
I was blown away. What great storytelling. I love movies where all the characters are interesting but everyone's behaving so badly that it's hard to guess how the heck the writer is going to end things on a satisfying note -- and then they do.
And this film was written and directed by one of the actors in the film -- Adrienne Shelly. I'd seen her before in some other indie-films and by the end of the movie was really looking forward to her next work.
But then I sat through to the end of the credits... The final line was:
"In loving memory of Adrienne Shelly."
What??? I started to cry. I had no idea. As soon as I got home, I looked up the story and it's so sad. In late 2006 her husband found her hanging by a sheet from a shower rod and the police initially ruled it a suicide -- but then a 19 year old construction worker, whom she'd complained about noise to, confessed to her murder after they found his footprints on the toilet seat.
How horrible is that?
But the movie is really great. So sweet. You're really rooting for the Kerri Russell character through the whole thing and the resolution to her story made me tear up, too. Teary night for me. LOL.
I'd been planning to go to Away From Her afterward, but decided I couldn't take another sad movie so went to see Spiderman instead... I could rant about how messed up the storytelling in that one is... but this was meant to be a post celebrating Waitress and the fabulously talented late Adrienne Shelly -- so I won't.
8 comments:
I've heard about this movie and about her tragic end. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Well, you've convinced me this is a movie I must see. Hope it gets to New Zealand within the decade.
I love your movie reviews! Could I possibly send you a list of movies I'm interested in seeing? You could be, like, my personal movie reviewer. No? How about if I paid your NetFlex fee? :)
Thank you for adding me to your side bar, for your congrats on my blog and, of course, for the blogger help!
Barrie
Saw Spiderman as well and so disappointed.
A mess, even with two actors I love, Thomas Hayden Church and Topher Grace.
How could they have fallen off the rails so completely..
Bad enough it wasn't entertaining, just boring..
Haven't seen Waitress yet but definitely on my list.
And so far I've been extremely disappointed in the third movies from the franchises of X-men, Spiderman (especially after the awesomeness of Spiderman 2), and even Shrek the third was a tad disappointing (although not as bad as I worried it might be. Decent story but just not as laugh out loud as the first two). Can Pirates be the end of me forking out big bucks to see a third movie? Ah, but there's always Johnny to look at if everything else goes awry...
I think the 3rd installment of Lord of the Rings was probably the pinnacle of 3's for me.
Nelsa
I haven't seen Shrek yet... And I agree about LoTR -- but maybe that one doesn't count as a sequel because it was really just the ending of the story started in the first one -- rather than movie producers trying to squeeze more money out of an idea.
Wow, it seems they made the story of Adrienne Shelly into an episode of Law and Order (original). I had never heard the true life story, but watched the episode.
sad indeed.
This is on my list to see...
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