Waitress (2007)

and the Money Hidden in the House

A warm, funny film about a waitress saving up, a dollar at a time, to leave a controlling husband. What it teaches about money as the thing that keeps you, a partner who treats a baby as a rival, the pies that said what she couldn't, the moment she held her daughter, and leaving both the husband and the rescue.

Waitress (2007). Written and directed by Adrienne Shelly. Keri Russell as Jenna Hunterson, Jeremy Sisto as Earl, Nathan Fillion as Dr. Jim Pomatter, Cheryl Hines as Becky, Adrienne Shelly as Dawn, and Andy Griffith as Joe.

She hid the money in the house, a little at a time. She called the pies by what she couldn’t say.

A note before you read. This page discusses a marriage to a controlling, abusive husband, who tries to hurt his wife in a hospital. Nothing is described in detail. If someone is hurting you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788; they can also help you plan to leave safely. Every other number is on the Resources page.

This page belongs to On Screen. It is a refusal, and the gentle issue between two heavy ones, Gaslight and The Great Gatsby. It’s a warm, funny, sad film about a woman saving up, a dollar at a time, to leave. Its writer and director, Adrienne Shelly, who also plays Dawn, was murdered in November 2006, a few months before the film premiered. She never saw what it became.

Like every entry on the On Screen page, it reads a story for the pattern it teaches, and makes no claim about anyone’s diagnosis. There’s no quote page for this film, so this page quotes no dialogue.

The Story

Jenna Hunterson is a waitress in a small Southern town, married to Earl, a controlling and abusive husband. At Joe’s Pie Diner she bakes inventive pies and names them after her life: the “Bad Baby Pie” is the one she makes the day she learns she’s pregnant, which she didn’t want. She is secretly saving money to leave, hiding it around the house. She pins her hopes on a pie contest in a nearby town with a $25,000 prize. Earl won’t let her go.

Her only friends are her co-workers, Becky and Dawn, and Joe, who owns the diner and comes in every day.

Jenna’s new obstetrician, Dr. Jim Pomatter, has just moved to town for his wife’s medical residency. Over several appointments, he and Jenna are drawn together, and they begin an affair. Her friends give her a baby journal, and she starts writing letters to her unborn child, her private thoughts and plans.

When Earl learns she’s pregnant, he makes her promise never to love the baby more than him. At Dawn’s wedding, he turns up and demands Jenna leave at once. At home, he confronts her with the cash he’s found hidden around the house. Jenna says it was for the baby, which means she has to spend it on the baby.

Jenna gives birth to a girl, Lulu, and when she holds her for the first time, everything changes. Earl, disappointed it’s a girl, reminds her of her promise. Jenna tells him she hasn’t loved him in years, that she won’t put up with his abuse any longer, and won’t let Lulu grow up with it either. She wants a divorce. Earl tries to attack her, and hospital security takes him out. He refuses to pay her medical bills.

Joe, in the same hospital, has left Jenna an envelope. Inside is a card with a drawing of her, “To my only friend, start fresh,” and a check for $270,450. Jenna ends things with Dr. Pomatter. She wins the pie contest, turns the diner into “Lulu’s Pies,” and walks home with her daughter.

What It Gets Right

A great deal. It shows that leaving is usually a long, quiet project, not a dramatic night: hidden money, small hopes, a contest across town. It shows how a controlling man treats even a baby as a rival. It shows women’s work, waitressing and baking, as real skill. And it ends with a woman who leaves the husband, and the affair, and chooses herself and her daughter.

What It Teaches

1. The money in the walls

Jenna hides cash around the house, a little at a time. When Earl finds it, she has to say it’s for the baby, and then spend it.

The Decoder’s Card 8, Financial Superiority, is “Using money as control and leverage.” Earl controls the money, so he controls whether she can leave. And when she finally does, he refuses to pay her hospital bill. Many women stay because they can’t afford to go. That isn’t weakness. It’s arithmetic, and the people who help with leaving know it.

2. “Never love the baby more than me”

When Earl hears about the pregnancy, his first demand is a promise: Jenna will never love the baby more than she loves him.

The Decoder’s Card P-3, Collaborative Threat Response, is “Your other relationships are treated as betrayal.” A partner who sees your child as competition is telling you something important about how he sees everyone else you love. If you’ve ever been asked to promise you’d love someone less, it was never a reasonable request.

3. The pies

Jenna can’t say what she feels out loud at home, so she bakes it. The pies have names like the one for the baby she didn’t want. They are her diary before the diary.

Many women have found somewhere to put the words they couldn’t say: a journal, a craft, a garden, a recipe. It isn’t small. It’s a way of keeping yourself alive until you can say it out loud.

4. Holding Lulu

Jenna didn’t want the baby. Then she holds her, and the film shows her change in an instant: she tells Earl it’s over, for her daughter’s sake as much as her own.

For many women, the moment they could leave for themselves came only when they saw a child watching. That’s not a lesser reason. It’s often the reason that finally holds.

5. Joe, and the doctor

Joe, the old man who owns the diner, turns out to have seen Jenna more clearly than anyone, and gives her the means to start over. And Dr. Pomatter, who offered her a fantasy of escape, is the one she says goodbye to.

It’s a quiet, important choice. Jenna doesn’t trade one man’s control for another man’s rescue. She leaves both, and walks home with her daughter.

Saving Up to Leave, Side by Side

	The Color Purple (1985)	Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)	Waitress (2007)
What kept her	Her husband, and years of silence	Fear, and a husband who watched everything	No money, and a husband who found what she saved
How she left	She spoke up, and walked out	She faked her death, with money she’d hidden	She told him, holding her daughter
Who helped	Shug	Her own planning	Her friends, and Joe

Three films about a woman getting out of a marriage that was hurting her. In each one, it took longer than anyone watching would think, and in each one, she did it.

If You Grew Up on This

Many readers found this film as adults, and some recognized the kitchen. Nothing on this page asks you to see it as anything but a warm film. The useful thing is to look at it clearly from where you stand now.

Some questions to sit with:

Has money decided whether you could leave, or stay?
Has a partner treated someone you loved, a child, a friend, a parent, as a rival?
Where did you put the words you couldn’t say out loud?
Has someone seen you more clearly than you saw yourself, and helped?
Have you ever been offered a rescue that was really just another man’s plan?

Jenna saved a little at a time. When it was time, she chose herself.

You’re the audience now. You get to start fresh.