You have “too many hours on Tik Tok” to thank for this week’s movie. My algorithm briefly skewed from Pedro-Pascal-is-Daddy-Tok back to Movie-Clip-Tok and I was flooded with scenes from Waiting… (2005). I’m sure this is because Justin Long is having a bit of a moment thanks to Barbarian and Ryan Reynolds is rich AF these days but whatever the reason for its surge in internet popularity, it seems now is the time to dig this sucker up, blow the dust off, and see what holds up.
Oh, not a lot.
But I signed on for this task and so I must proceed as is my duty. I am fully prepared for the “you must have never waited tables” brigade and frat bro comedians to come for me. I think I can handle it, but just in case, do I drape garlic around my neck for protection or is that for something else?
Waiting… is an early aughts comedy that feels very much like an early aughts comedy. Framed as a workplace slacker comedy a la Clerks (writer-director Rob McKittrick openly expresses how much that movie influenced this one), we join a group of restaurant workers for one full day in their lives. Open to close. Our protagonist Dean (Justin Long) is having a quarter life crisis after learning that people his age have Bachelor’s degrees and he’s stuck waiting tables and going to community college. Dean works with his best friend Monty (Ryan Reynolds), his girlfriend Amy (Kaitlin Doubleday), and a ragtag gang of other weirdos who don’t want for much other than to clock out on time and make good tips.
This movie was very much a commercial success making $18 million worldwide on a budget of $3 million. Contrary to what many think, poor reception by movie critics doesn’t necessarily make a cult classic. In this case, it’s a mainstream winner. It has plenty of fans and made plenty of money upon release. So, how does a movie wind up in a situation like Waiting…, which has a 30% critic rating and 75% viewer rating on Rotten Tomatoes?
It found common ground with audiences.
According to America Works Here, “Half of all adults have worked in the restaurant industry at some point during their lives. In fact, nearly one in three Americans had their first job at a restaurant.” That’s a pretty big pool of people who can relate to the tediousness of restaurant life, and given that the movie has a big ensemble cast, nearly every role in the restaurant is covered from cooks to bartenders to busboys. Most people (read: most white, straight people) can see themselves in Waiting…
Speak to anyone who loves this movie and the first thing you’ll hear is how relatable and true to life it is. Rarely will someone who loves this movie say something about, say, the depth of character or technical elements of how it was made. It’s not that kind of flick. There is something about workplace trauma that is fun to work through via movies. Perhaps it makes us feel less alone with what we’ve been through. Perhaps they make us feel seen. I think of how often Office Space has been referred to over the years in my life as a 9-5 office worker. Similar to how we process breakups with rom coms, we love to see the same pains inflicted on fictional characters and take note of how they get through it all. Or how they do things we’d never have the bravery for, like quitting.
It’s for all of those reasons that I wish this movie was a lot better. Off the top, it’s highly offensive and the jokes are cheap. Monty (Reynolds) grooms high school girls and he’s supposed to be a character that we like and get along with. Too many jokes rest on the Penis Game-- the goal of which is to just flash your junk to an unsuspecting coworker and if they look you get to kick them in the ass and call them a pretty specific slur for gay men.
All of the women are shadows of characters and are mostly utilized in the plot for sex-- the underage hostess, Amy who Dean has yet to fully commit to, the lesbian bartender, the bartender girlfriend. It’s a bit brutal to watch. The only standouts here are Serena (Anna Faris) and Naomi (Alanna Ubach). Serena uses her looks to make better tips, but it's on her own terms. Naomi is 3 seconds away from a total fucking breakdown the entire movie but owns her space completely. Both have to put up with the men they work with trying to take them down a few pegs but they ultimately persevere-- whatever that means considering few characters (other than Dean) have any growth.
By the end of the movie, Dean decides it's time to quit waiting tables and find his true calling. (Get it? He was waiting and waiting.) But for the rest of the Shenanigans gang, they’re all very much left where we’ve started. Monty does decide to wait a week until his underage coworker Natasha turns 18 to sleep with her-- which I guess is personal growth in a creepy way. I can’t say the same for their store manager, Dan, who attempts to show up to a staff party to see what happens with a very drunk Natasha. Everyone else pretty much stays the same, which I guess is as real as it gets. Look, I don’t need everyone to make life changing decisions by the end, but some closure would be nice. Does Tyla (Emmanuelle Chriqui) take the girl from the bar home? Couldn’t Raddimus (Luis Guzmán) finally realize how lucky he is to have Danielle (Jordan Ladd)? We get nothing.
I don’t think my expectations are too high. This movie was released the same year as Wedding Crashers, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. All three of these are brilliant comedies that, while they involve similar content, are much more subtle in delivery than Waiting… which felt a little bit like the death of the gross out comedy. By 2005 we were moving on from the American Pie/Van Wilder/Road Trip style of humor and into something different altogether. Compare this to 2007’s Superbad which isn’t less subtle in some of its jokes (dick cartoons, period blood etc.) but carries more weight and depth with its characters. Evan and Seth are best friends and their relationship matters. The world they live in is compelling and fun.
Instead we get characters like Nick (Andy Milonakis) a wannabe “gangsta” busboy (which is so cringeworthy and inappropriate) and Floyd (Dane Cook, who allegedly does groom girls IRL) as a rude cook. No one is bonded. No one is even friends. They exist in a sort of purgatory where they’re not only tortured by work, but also tortured by one another.
I think the best way to sum up my feelings about Waiting… is to use Mitch’s (John Francis Daley) epic monologue and takedown of his new coworkers:
Everytime I drop food on the floor the "We almost had to switch to the 10-second rule" line pops in my head. Literally the only part of this that's stuck with me.