"Waitress" has brilliant casting and direction. Whoever did the casting nailed every role no matter how small with the perfect actor. This movie was directed by Adrienne Shelly, who also wrote the screenplay. (She was murdered just before the film's release when she walked in on a burglar in her home office.)
The movie is about Jenna (Keri Russell), who is married to a terrible man. Jenna finds out she's pregnant just when she's saved up enough money from waitressing to leave her husband. Russell has a hard, angry face throughout much of the movie, exactly as we'd expect from someone in her position. Her husband, Earl, is played by Jeremy Sisto with totally convincing creepiness as a controlling, needy narcissist. (I don't know where Shelly dredged up his character, but she nailed it in the screen play, and Sisto nailed it in his performance). Jenna falls in love with her doctor (Dr. Pomatter), played superbly by Nathan Fillion. Jenna and Pomatter's scenes range from riotously funny to affectingly poignant. The problem is, he's married, too, and his wife (played by Darby Stanchfield) loves him. I was watching the movie, wondering how Shelly was going to get Jenna and Pomatter out of what clearly is an untenable relationship.
Aside from the conflict of their adulterous relationship, we have a potentially even more momentous conflict: Jenna doesn't want to be pregnant. It means she can't just run off and leave Earl. Jenna begins a letter to her baby, explaining why she can't love it.
Meanwhile, her fellow waitresses, her manager, the restaurant owner, and a wealth of others have their fifteen minutes on the screen, adding a richness to the world of Jenna that we're peeking in on. Shelly does get all the conflicts resolved, but the ending is a little too "deus ex machina" for me. Just a little, not enough to spoil it. It's a great, grand film, and Shelly's murderer robbed us all of a wonderful talent.