SBD: Waitress
May. 21st, 2007 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksIt's Monday. And I've just finished reading Kelley Armstrong's No Humans Involved. But I don't have anything SBD-ish to say about them. Instead, let me tell you about the movie I saw on Saturday.
After seeing Waitress this weekend, I was reminded that Hollywood’s romantic comedies really are the equivalent of chick lit. It’s all about the women – the heroes are handsome and charming and quirky or whatever the heroine is attracted to, but in the end, the romantic comedy is about the heroine, by and large. You can tell by the actors who are cast – they never get top billing. It isn’t just the falling in love, it is coming to some epiphany about self or life or something else important.
Good performances (including Keri Russell’s hair, which deserved a credit of its own, and Andy Griffith as Russell’s curmudgeonly employer), lots of funny moments, very good score. Happy ending of sorts, although not a traditional. Which reminds me – despite the marketing, the comedy and the romance, this isn’t a romantic comedy. This was more like the movie version of women’s fiction. Anyway, I left the theater feeling vaguely disappointed, and I didn’t really know why until I thought of the movie in book terms. I felt the lack of POV from the nominal hero, Doc Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). And Jenna Hunterson (Keri Russell’s character, the narrator) was not the most sympathetic of characters. I realized that if I had been reading this book rather than watching it on the big screen, I probably wouldn’t’ve made it to the end. In part because of the characters and in part because of some of the implicit messages (that I saw…others might see other things).
The movie itself was a fairy tale, told in a stylized way. Not necessarily my favorite thing; a lot of the niggles I have about the movie lead back to that style and what the director was doing with it. (Like the unhygienic kitchen. And the unlikely bus in the middle of no where. And the odd hours 9-5 of the diner that gave the waitresses the convenient opportunity to socialize out front in the twilight. And so on.) In retrospect, the number of clichés that are used bother me: poor grammar in a thick, fake Southern accent is short hand for either stupidity or venality or some other negative thing; even women who aren’t happy to be pregnant will be struck by powerful mother-love because all women are born to be parents and it is only natural; curmudgeons always have hearts of gold; and mother-love will always finally give women the balls to leave an abusive relationship.
Side note: Jeremy Sisto must get tired of playing the same roles over and over. I can’t think of any movie that he’s been in since Clueless in which he wasn’t playing either a psychopath or an asshole.
After seeing Waitress this weekend, I was reminded that Hollywood’s romantic comedies really are the equivalent of chick lit. It’s all about the women – the heroes are handsome and charming and quirky or whatever the heroine is attracted to, but in the end, the romantic comedy is about the heroine, by and large. You can tell by the actors who are cast – they never get top billing. It isn’t just the falling in love, it is coming to some epiphany about self or life or something else important.
Good performances (including Keri Russell’s hair, which deserved a credit of its own, and Andy Griffith as Russell’s curmudgeonly employer), lots of funny moments, very good score. Happy ending of sorts, although not a traditional. Which reminds me – despite the marketing, the comedy and the romance, this isn’t a romantic comedy. This was more like the movie version of women’s fiction. Anyway, I left the theater feeling vaguely disappointed, and I didn’t really know why until I thought of the movie in book terms. I felt the lack of POV from the nominal hero, Doc Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). And Jenna Hunterson (Keri Russell’s character, the narrator) was not the most sympathetic of characters. I realized that if I had been reading this book rather than watching it on the big screen, I probably wouldn’t’ve made it to the end. In part because of the characters and in part because of some of the implicit messages (that I saw…others might see other things).
The movie itself was a fairy tale, told in a stylized way. Not necessarily my favorite thing; a lot of the niggles I have about the movie lead back to that style and what the director was doing with it. (Like the unhygienic kitchen. And the unlikely bus in the middle of no where. And the odd hours 9-5 of the diner that gave the waitresses the convenient opportunity to socialize out front in the twilight. And so on.) In retrospect, the number of clichés that are used bother me: poor grammar in a thick, fake Southern accent is short hand for either stupidity or venality or some other negative thing; even women who aren’t happy to be pregnant will be struck by powerful mother-love because all women are born to be parents and it is only natural; curmudgeons always have hearts of gold; and mother-love will always finally give women the balls to leave an abusive relationship.
Side note: Jeremy Sisto must get tired of playing the same roles over and over. I can’t think of any movie that he’s been in since Clueless in which he wasn’t playing either a psychopath or an asshole.
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Date: 2007-05-22 01:16 am (UTC)But yeah, you're absolutely right most of the time. I'm just picking out my favorites because I KNOW they're my favorites because of the focus on the hero rather than the heroine.
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From:From Carrie http://lovelysalome.blogspot.com
Date: 2007-05-22 12:29 pm (UTC)Nathan Fillion's Southern accent is just terrible. Not his Mal accent, but his full-on Southern, a la Sliter. And any diner that is only open 9-5 is a diner that won't be in business long. Silly.
Re: From Carrie http://lovelysalome.blogspot.com
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Date: 2007-05-23 05:35 am (UTC)The last movie I remember Barrymore in was the one with the SNL guy. Basically the guy loves baseball and the movie revolved around this. I really felt like the movie was more from a guy's perspective and I didn't like it very much at all!
CindyS
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