WHEN it screened at Sundance Festival, Adrienne Shelly's deliciously quirky Waitress became known as "this year's Little Miss Sunshine". Or think of it as Alice Doesn't Live Here Any Moremeets The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg. Only the best of comparisons can do justice to this weirdly beautiful slice of pure emotional release. Actress/ director Shelly . . . you'll remember her from haunting performances in indie director Hal Hartley's The Unbelievable Truth and Trust . . . brings a wonderful fresh glow to escapist entertainment.

Here it's the characters who re-imagine a reality too daunting to bear, while the audience sees it for what it is. Keri Russell plays Jenna, a waitress in a small Deep South diner who transcends the misery of her relationship with an abusive husband (Jeremy Sisto) and the shock of finding herself pregnant with his baby by each day coming up with a pie that reflects her feelings, such as I Hate My Husband Pie, the recipe for which is "you take bittersweet chocolate and don't sweeten it".

The pies become the pivot of the plot, causing her gynaecologist Nathan Fillion) to fall in love with her (Earl Murders Me Because I'm Having An Affair Pie). Giving birth . . .

because Jenna isn't a girl to contemplate abortion . . . is marked by Baby Screaming Its Head Off In The Middle Of The Night And Ruining My Life Pie.

The baby, incidentally, is Shelly's own toddler, Sophie. Urged on by her waitress pals Becky (Curb your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines), who's secretly dating their boss . . .

a delicious cameo by veteran Andy Griffith . . . and Dawn, played by Shelly, Jenna sees a chance of escape in entering a best pie competition worth $25,000 to the winner.

Shelly catches the wistful mood by shooting Waitress almost like one of Jenna's own confections. Everything is stylised in delicate pastel shades and with dialogue that sounds like words sung of music that isn't there. Like a good cook, she uses only the best unadulterated ingredients, wit without smugness, poignancy without saccharine, emotion without sentimentality.

Sadly she didn't live to enjoy the success of Waitress, which may well linger in the memory of Academy voters enough for them to remember it when they come to vote for the Oscars early next year. She was murdered in her shower in an act of random violence by a stranger, the day after Halloween last year. She was 40. Waitress stands on its own merit . . . but it is also an epitaph to a talent rubbed out just as it was about to come into its own.