I wanted to like this more than I did, not only because actress/director Adrienne Shelly was murdered right before its release, but because she was a favorite of mine back in college when I still thought Hal Hartley could direct and wasn't a hollow artlessly arty caricature of himself. Waitress is a bit too fey and self-aware for my taste, even though there are a number of interesting things about it. It tries hard to achieve a milieu of small town weirdness, and gets about halfway there.