Jonita Davis The Black Cape (Medium) Mar 30, 2026

For many millennial women, the film is the life we are trying to build right now, nearly two decades later, divorcees, empty-nesters, and perimenopausal, too. Finally, looking to create our own "pie shop" in life.

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Richard Propes TheIndependentCritic.com Sep 26, 2020 4.0/4.0

It's hard to picture an actress other than Russell so beautifully blending the drama, desperation, hopefulness, sweetness, and sensuality of her character.

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Yasser Medina Cinefilia Aug 26, 2020 6/10

Adrienne Shelly's 'Waitress' is a bittersweet comedy-drama that has good intentions when it establish its romantic dilemmas, but I feel it lacks grace and emotionality. [Full review in Spanish]

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Brandy McDonnell The Oklahoman Aug 9, 2018 3.5/4

The experience is enjoyable but bittersweet, because Waitress will leave you with a taste for more.

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Jade Budowski Decider Jan 31, 2018

This little movie's got a lot of heart, and it's a heart that's unafraid to embrace life's littlest moments in all its forms.

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Shauna Lyon The New Yorker Feb 10, 2014

Shelly deftly achieves a tone pitched between fantasy and reality, its levity belying an astute and humane study of an unhappy relationship steeped in inertia.

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Wally Hammond Time Out Nov 18, 2011 3/5

Funny, gentle, unpatronising, if occasionally naive and quirky.

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Cliff Doerksen Time Out Chicago Nov 17, 2011 1/5

Essentially a king-size serving of sitcom

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Nick Rogers Midwest Film Journal Nov 22, 2010 3.5/4

Adrienne Shelly's lasting legacy is this exquisite, engaging film about slices of life, Keri Russell's luminosity, an unhurried narrative, Andy Griffith's codger delighting in schadenfreude and even Jeremy Sisto making his abhorrent character relatable.

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Fernando F. Croce CinePassion Aug 27, 2009

Allergic as I am to quirkiness, I was won over

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David Nusair Reel Film Reviews Aug 14, 2009 2.5/4

... Fillion offers up an endlessly charismatic performance...

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Bob Mondello NPR.org Oct 18, 2008

The film is hardly flawless - even the pie-baking scenes sometimes seem half-baked - but it's hard not to read promise into every frame, and to wonder what Shelly might have cooked up in the future.

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Heather Huntington ReelzChannel.com Aug 28, 2008 8/10

Adrienne Shelly's last piece has all the right ingredients.

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Kevin Carr 7M Pictures Aug 17, 2008 2/5

full of whiney characters that eventually make the right decisions only after an unprecedented amount of hand-wringing

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Robert Davis Paste Magazine Jun 9, 2008 4/5

It's a love letter of the first degree, the kind that rises out of trepidation and confusion, almost by accident, with a sudden force of absolute clarity.

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Brandon Fibbs Colorado Springs Gazette Feb 28, 2008 8/10

Waitress is a beautiful and poignant swan song for what should have been the vanguard of a blossoming career.

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Wesley Lovell Cinema Sight Feb 2, 2008 3.5/4

Keri Russell sparkles in this story about a piemaker who longs for something more filling.

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Garth Franklin Dark Horizons Jan 15, 2008

Waitress combines quirky humour with an added and enhanced sense of emotional truth.

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Stephen Himes Film Snobs Dec 11, 2007 2/10

Completely inauthentic in every detail--the cinematic equivalent of an apple pie from Perkins.

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Frank Ochieng Movie Eye Dec 6, 2007 3/4

Despite Shelly's twist of disturbing fate, WAITRESS will be a memorialized nod of a little gem of a film that delivered a slice of pie to our hungry, entertaining expectations

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