Nathan Fillion

Jenna Hunterston (Keri Russell), heroine of the Sundance charmer, “Waitress,” is a true artist. Her studio is the kitchen in a roadside diner and her palette includes chocolates and raspberries rather than browns and reds, but the gastronomical wonders she cooks up in a pie pan deserve the praise typically reserved for a Picasso. Still, despite Jenna’s status as a “pie genius,” her life is hardly enviable. Suffocating in an abusive marriage, Jenna dreams of the day she’ll have pocketed enough tips to start her life anew. But when she unexpectedly gets pregnant and even more unexpectedly starts an affair with her white-knight obstetrician, Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion), Jenna’s life becomes anything but easy as, well, you get the picture.

Written and directed by the late Adrienne Shelly, “Waitress” provides the perfect cinematic antidote to the frenzied blockbusters that clog movie theaters each summer. Charming but not cute, quirky but never wacky, “Waitress” is a homespun slice of life unafraid to serve the bitter along with the sweet. Jenna’s trials, which she logs with new culinary creations like Kick-in-the-Pants pie (cinnamon custard) and Pregnant-Miserable-Self-Pitying-Loser pie (lumpy oatmeal with fruitcake, “Flambé, of course”), hum with a real-life energy, as she struggles to survive her pregnancy.

With “Waitress,” Shelly, a pioneer in independent films as muse to director Hal Hartley, has added another worthy entry to the indie roster. Her sharp writing and directing pokes holes straight through chick-flick stereotypes and reveals true struggle, heartbreak, and triumph. Like Gurinder Chadha, writer-director of “Bend it Like Beckham,” another Fox Searchlight release, Shelly doesn’t need to beat the girl-power drum, because the actions and words of her strong female characters are enough to carry the message.

A considerable share of this success is due to an utterly delightful performance by Russell as the pastry virtuoso. Russell, with her baby-doll features and petite frame, gives Jenna a steely strength tempered with a sweet, empathetic attitude, and her comic timing is just icing on the, uh, cake. Russell is well aided by her talented supporting cast: Fillion’s adulterous doctor is far McDreamier than Patrick Dempsey’s will ever be; Shelly and Cheryl Hines, Jenna’s sisterly coworkers, diffuse the dramatic tension with their lighthearted storylines; Andy Griffith offers a gruff but sage presence as the crotchety owner of Joe’s Pie Shop; and Jeremy Sisto, as the abusive husband, clings to Jenna with a desperate determination not seen since Harry Harlow’s monkeys held on tight to those wire mothers.

This weekend, “Spider-Man 3” will open on a record-breaking 4,252 theaters. “Waitress” is slotted to play on only four. Shelly, who, six months ago, was found dead in her office at age 40, left audiences a wonderfully unique and personal film. This summer, do yourself a favor. Avoid the highly-manufactured, sugary studio concoctions. Instead, take a generous helping of “Waitress,” which is just as scrumptious and satisfying as any of Jenna’s pies.