husbands and wives; Three new films consider the intricacies of marriage.(Waitress; Away from Her; Jindabyne)(Movie review)

The recipe for a crowd-pleasing comedy could hardly be simpler: Take equal parts food and romance, then give them a gentle stir. That's the surefire formula followed by Waitress, Adrienne Shelly's upbeat charmer about a young woman seeking happiness through the magic of love-and baking.

Keri Russell stars as Jenna, a waitress and "pie genius" at a small-town diner. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a thuggish husband, Earl (Jeremy Sisto), she dreams of winning a pie-baking contest and getting away; instead, she learns that she's pregnant. Just when the doors seem to be closing forever, she meets someone-a handsome obstetrician, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). But there's one big problem: He's also married. Jenna winds up caught between a rotten hubby and an illicit love. What keeps her sane is baking such gems as the "I Hate My Husband Pie," the "I Don't Want Earl's Baby Pie," and, supremely, the "I Can't Have No Affair Because It's Wrong and I Don't Want Earl to Kill Me Pie."

The movie premiered at Sundance, where, sadly, coverage focused less on Shelly's achievement than on her terrible fate: Last November, the 40-year-old writer-director was murdered in New York City, allegedly by a construction worker. Waitress is her third feature film, and though it sometimes veers into sitcom territory-Jenna's fellow waitresses ham it up like refugees from Alice-it's tinged with a sweet melancholy, not least in a nifty turn by that cagey old trouper Andy Griffith.

Jenna's late mama always told her that a good pie has a heart in its center, and Waitress is at its best during her amorous encounters. Dr. Pomatter is delightfully played by Fillion, whose oddball comic sense gives his virility a pleasing tweak. He brings out the joy in Russell, who, best known for Felicity, gives a performance here that is, well, felicitous. Not only does this fresh-faced actress know her way around a wisecrack, but she endows Jenna with a likable gravitas. By the film's happy ending (which is, frankly, a bit too happy), the buoyant Russell makes us believe that this once-lost waitress has embraced the truth of the amusing line from novelist George Meredith: ...