2007 Waitress Part 4

Waitress Part 4 

It's not to be.  As Jenna stands on the clinic porch, her water breaks, and she has to go the the hospital and deliver the baby.  As the baby is born, she yells, "I don't want no baby, Earl!"  While the nurses and Dr. Pomatter clean the baby, she is silent, facing away with a blank expression.  The nurse tries to get her attention, asking, "Would you like to hold your baby, Mrs. Hunterson?  Mrs. Hunterson.  Did you hear me?  Are you okay?  Mrs. Hunterson?"


Jenna finally turns to look at the baby, and her face lights up with eager love as she holds her baby girl in her arms:

Jenna: Give her to me.  Oh, my God.  Oh, my God.
Earl: Hey.  Do you remember what I said?  Don't you go loving that baby too much.

Jenna sends Earl packing.

Jenna: I don't love you, Earl.  I haven't loved you for years.  I want a divorce.
Earl: That's not a funny joke.  We got this new baby here.  Shouldn't be making jokes like that.
Jenna: I want you the hell out of my life.  You are never to touch me, ever again.   I am done with you.  If you ever come within six yards of me, I will flatten your sorry ass, and I will enjoy doing it.
Earl: Now hold on a second.
Jenna: Lulu.  That's your name.  Little Lulu.  We're going to have so much fun, little girl.  We're going to have so... much... fun.

Becky and Dawn pick Jenna up from the hospital, and tell her she is going to stay with Becky and Ogie for awhile since she has split from Earl.  They also tell her that Joe, who was undergoing a procedure in the same hospital, is not going to survive his operation.  Jenna is sad, and opens the card he had left for her before going into surgery, to find a check for upwards of two hundred thousand dollars made out to her.  Before he died, he made sure she could afford the new life he dreamed of for her.

Dr. Pomatter comes to see her in the hallway as they are wheeling her out, and she makes a clean break of the relationship, with no tears, and no hesitation:

Dr. Pomatter: I know what you're thinking.  No, I don't.  That's a lie.  What are you thinking?
Jenna: I'm thinking I could never thank you enough for everything you've done for me.  I'm thinking your wife's around and you probably shouldn't kiss me.   The way she looks at you, so much trust.
Dr. Pomatter: So that's it?  It's over?  I don't have any say in this?
Jenna: We could have a big drama here that gets drawn out for a couple years, makes everyone miserable.  Or we could just end it right here, you know?  No body count, just say bye-bye.  I'm saying bye-bye.

As she leaves him behind, she shows no regret.  She has eyes only for Lulu: "Geez, I never seen a baby this beautiful.  You ever seen a baby this beautiful?"

The movie ends a couple of years later.  Jenna owns her own adorable pie shop, Lulu is a beautiful toddler, and her life is bliss.


It is such a happy, feel-good ending after all the turmoil she went through.  Such a transformation.


A part of me wishes that she had stayed with Dr. Pomatter.  They were so good together, and he seemed to want to be with her, but I respect that Jenna wanted to start fresh.  Tyler didn't love this movie, because he couldn't get past the adultery (I like that about him).  I didn't approve of Dr. Pomatter cheating, but I found it easy to forgive Jenna, because she was in such a terrible situation.  With Dr. Pomatter, I guess it was simple just to forget that he was married, because we don't see his wife until Jenna is in labor near the end.

The one part that did not resonate with me was the birth of Jenna's baby.  Jenna goes from a very depressed woman to a woman in a state of pure bliss in a moment.  I assumed after watching this movie that this would be my experience as well, but having suffered from PPD (Postpartum Depression with both my girls), I didn't get to experience that instant glow, and this makes me a little sad when I watch the movie now.  I know that based on research, someone already in a state of depression, as Jenna was, tends to be susceptible to PPD; I think, however, that perhaps Jenna was in such a deep depression already that the birth of her child actually worked to reverse that depression.  It makes me think of the 1948 movie The Snake Pit: "It was strange, here I was among all those people, and at the same time I felt as if I were looking at them from some place far away, the whole place seemed to me like a deep hole and the people down in it like strange animals, like...like snakes, and I've been thrown into it.  Yes, as though -as though I were in a snake pit...Later, weeks later, I understood.  I remembered once reading in a book that long ago they used to put insane people into pits full of snakes.  I think they figured that something which might drive a normal person insane, might shock an insane person back into sanity.  Did you ever hear of that?...Well, it was just as though they'd thrown me into a snake pit.  And I was shocked into thinking that maybe I wasn't as sick as the others, and I really might get well."  This isn't based on any science, but it's a thought.  She was at rock bottom, and the baby brought her back from the abyss.

I don't know why, and it may not be true, but to me Waitress feels like a love letter from Adrienne Shelly to her young daughter, who appears in the final scene of the movie as Jenna's daughter, Lulu.  Adrienne Shelly wrote and directed the movie, and played Dawn.  Though it isn't really autobiographical, she clearly put her heart and soul into the making of this movie.  According to Keri Russell, in the film commentary, Shelly was passionate about every little detail of the movie.  The main character's life is turned around, from total unhappiness and misery to complete joy, with the birth of her baby.  She finds her courage and her confidence, and makes a new life for herself and her daughter.  I can only imagine that this joy was inspired by Shelly being pregnant with her daughter when she wrote the script, and giving birth to her before filming.  Of course, this is all my interpretation, but with the tragedy of Shelly's murder before the film's premiere, I think it is wonderful that she left behind such a charming, beautiful testament to a mother's love for her daughter that her daughter can treasure in the future.