Directed by Diane Paulus and Brett Sullivan Music by Sara Bareilles

Reviewed by Isabelle Flood

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In a culture that believes abortion is necessary and empowering for women, it’s refreshing to find a mainstream story that highlights the beauty of pregnancy and motherhood.

Waitress: The Musical, a pro-shot of the Tony-nominated Broadway show written by and starring singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles, and based on the 2007 film starring Keri Russell, opened in movie theaters last December. Some might regard the musical’s woke treatment of adultery as impure, but at its heart, Waitress is an empowering pro-life story. It is refreshingly and candidly feminine—depicting supportive female friendships and promoting traditional feminine traits that “strong female leads” commonly put down. This leading lady is sensitive, humble, and nurturing. She loves baking. Most importantly, Jenna, who works as a waitress in a diner, is an appealing heroine who ultimately finds strength, identity, and love in becoming a mother.

Finding Strength in Motherhood (Spoilers Ahead!)

Trapped in an abusive and seemingly inescapable marriage, Jenna starts an affair with her obstetrician. She wishes she weren’t pregnant and feels little affection for her preborn child, but chooses life for her baby nonetheless. She has no idea what motherhood has in store for her and can’t anticipate how having her child will change everything.

According to the Office for National Statistics, more than 1 in 3 people who are abused as a child go on to be abused by a partner as an adult. Often, victims are vulnerable to abusive relationships because they associate the feelings of abuse with love. They believe that they are not worthy of, or don’t even know about, healthy love. Jenna’s marriage is an example of this. She grew up with an abusive father. Her husband Earl takes all her earnings, yells, pushes, and nearly hits her. He is emotionally manipulative, threatening suicide if Jenna leaves him, and pressuring her to promise that she won’t love the baby more than she loves him.

Many would argue that in Jenna’s situation an abortion would be better for both her and the baby. Having a baby with Earl forms another tie to a man who would likely subject not only his wife but their child to abuse. Jenna could barely scrape together enough to escape on her own, let alone provide for another. Yet despite what seems a hopeless situation, she is determined to keep her baby.

Secretly planning to leave Earl and her hometown, for months Jenna hides money throughout the house, only to have Earl find and confiscate it, ruining her plan. Shortly afterwards, Jenna goes into labor and delivers a healthy baby girl. When a nurse calls her name, Jenna doesn’t respond. The nurse then asks if she wants to hold her baby. After a reluctant pause, she answers, “Give her to me.”

A serene instrumental plays as Jenna gazes in awe at her baby, feeling for the first time an overwhelming rush of true and transformative love. When Earl reminds her not to love the baby more than him, she immediately replies: “I don’t love you anymore, Earl. I haven’t in a very long time.” She firmly declares that she wants a divorce and warns him that if he ever comes near her or the baby, she will seek a restraining order.

This musical depicts the strength motherhood can bestow. Jenna had struggled to escape her abusive marital relationship for some time, but upon giving birth, her eyes were opened to the importance of protecting her priceless treasure. Previously driven by fear, Jenna is driven now by love. She stays in her hometown and subsequently inherits the diner from the late owner. Not only can she provide for her baby, she can also pursue her dreams and have a successful career.

Finding Identity and Love in Motherhood

The show’s opening song, “What’s Inside,” seems to be about baking pies: “Sugar, butter, flour.” But listen closely and you see that it introduces a theme: “what’s inside” Jenna—both her own identity and her preborn child. She feels a loss of self, but her preborn child will assist in bringing about a newfound identity.

In “She Used to Be Mine,” Bareilles’ rich vocals powerfully convey Jenna’s pain. The abuse she has suffered has led to an identity crisis. She sings about how she can’t recognize herself anymore, recalling the girl she once was: “She is messy, but she’s kind. She is lonely most of the time. She is all of this, mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie. She is gone, but she used to be mine.”

After meeting her baby, who she names Lulu, “everything changes,” and, as Jenna sings to her: “Who I was has disappeared. It doesn’t matter, now you’re here, so innocent. I was lost, for you to find. And now I’m yours, and you are mine.” She ends the song with a resolution: “I swear I’ll remember to say we were both born today.” Now that Jenna has Lulu to care for, it doesn’t matter who she was before, because she is now Lulu’s mother, and that is everything to her.

Research supports our character’s sudden development. Scientific American reported in 2006 that “dramatic hormonal fluctuations that occur during pregnancy, birth, and lactation may remodel the female brain, increasing the size of neurons in some regions and producing structural changes in others.” According to the New York Times, a mother’s brain goes through a process of synaptic pruning, which eliminates certain brain connections in order to facilitate new ones. Giving birth is said to enhance a woman’s ability to empathize and protect.

Early in the musical, Jenna tells Joe, the diner owner, “I don’t have ones I love, just ones I live with.” As she gets to know her doctor, Jim, Jenna begins a relationship that contrasts with the one she has with her abusive husband. For example, Earl admits that when he used to tell her she could open her own pie shop, he “was only trying to get laid.” Jim, on the other hand, gushes in a song about the pie she has made for him: “I swear that as those flavors mixed and melted, I could hear the sirens sing.” His amazement at Jenna’s pies symbolizes his amazement at who Jenna is. “It only takes a taste when you know it’s good”—Jim is getting a taste of who Jenna is and quickly falling for her. Unlike Earl, Jim sees and loves Jenna for who she is, not what she can do for him. Jenna, craving something new and exciting, begins an affair with him even though he too is married.

After giving birth, Jenna speaks alone with Jim. The audience might expect a classic rom-com ending: The cute, quirky couple who are destined for each other will run away from commitments they have made to be together. But despite the comfort and affection she receives from Jim, Jenna has seen the way his wife looks at him: with trust. She knows their relationship isn’t fair to his wife. Having found true, selfless love with her daughter, Jenna sees everything in a new light and has the prudence to end this ill-advised relationship.

This is not a story that romanticizes adultery and sticks a label of “Love” on it. The true love story here is between a mother and daughter. After spending her entire pregnancy being indifferent to what’s inside her, Jenna discovers true love when she meets her daughter, an experience that strengthens and transforms her. The show closes with Jenna “opening up to love.”

It’s easy for us to get caught up in criticism or condemnation of abortion supporters, but this risks creating a greater rift between the pro-choice and pro-life positions. While I commend conservative movie makers for their work, many times a movie that is advertised or labeled as pro-life, or one that is overbearingly political, will repel those who have differing views.

As a secular, mainstream movie, Waitress can reach and touch abortion advocates, showing them how beautiful embracing an unwanted pregnancy can be. Meanwhile, it can also bring home to prolifers the struggles that many pregnant women face, and how essential compassion is in our fight for life. More art than advocacy, Waitress has the power to unite people of differing beliefs in a positive, beautiful way, reminding all of us of the power of love.