Director's murder makes "Waitress" bittersweet

Keri Russell in WAITRESS Photo Credit: Alan Markfield

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Waitress," a romantic comedy directed by murdered actress Adrienne Shelly, has won rave reviews after early screenings, but the success is bittersweet for her husband just six months after she was killed.

The film follows the story of Jenna, played by Keri Russell, a waitress desperate to escape from her oppressive marriage. An unplanned pregnancy thwarts Jenna's dreams of running away. Resentment of her unborn baby for tying her down leads her to create delicacies like "Pregnant, Miserable, Self-Pitying Loser Pie."

Shelly completed "Waitress," her third film, days before she was killed in a Manhattan apartment in November. A construction worker has been charged with murdering Shelly after she complained he was making noise in the apartment below hers.

Shelly's husband, Andrew Ostroy, said he hoped the film would raise money for a foundation he created in his wife's name to provide grants and scholarships to young women filmmakers.

"Obviously it's incredibly bittersweet," Ostroy said in an interview. "It's been a real benefit to the foundation to be able to ride the wave of success and awareness that the film has given the foundation."

"Waitress" registered the second-highest box-office takings per screen on its opening weekend, second only to "Spider-Man 3." The film is playing in a few cities, but it is due for wider release around the United States next week.

"Part feminist fable, part romantic fairy tale, it is by turns tart and sweet, charming and tough," The New York Times said in a review that described the film as "lovely, touching and infused with life."

Shelly, who made her name as an actress in independent director Hal Hartley's "The Unbelievable Truth" and "Trust," plays another waitress at the Southern small-town diner where Jenna works. The movie also features Cheryl Hines, best known for her role as Larry David's wife in "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Shelly and Ostroy's 3-year-old daughter has a cameo role.

"She tackled a lot of very serious issues in this film and it has a very strong message -- a strong family message and a very strong female empowerment message," Ostroy said.

"She was always a champion of women, and there's not a lot of opportunities for women either in Hollywood or the independent world."

The Adrienne Shelly Foundation (http://www.adrienneshellyfoundation.org), launched in January, has raised a substantial six-figure sum, Ostroy said, and it has started making grants through institutions like Columbia University's film school.

Hartley, who is on the advisory board of the foundation, said he and Shelly were friends who shared a taste for treating reality in an off-beat way in their films.

"There's this great piece in 'Waitress' where Keri (Russell) gets kissed by the doctor and walks around with this unbelievable grin on her face for five days," Hartley said, recalling Shelly as a prolific and original writer.

Ostroy said Shelly left about six finished scripts and he was working on one that he hopes to produce as a movie.

"It's a drama between a husband and a wife," he said.

"She had very similar themes in all her movies -- the everyday challenges and tribulations that people face."

Reuters/Nielsen