George Bamber | The Good Waiter / 2016

dying to get a job

by Douglas Messerli

 

Matthew Ludwinski and Kevin Grant Spencer (screenplay), George Bamber (director) The Good Waiter / 2016 [16 minutes]

 

Kevin (Kevin Grant Spencer), a would-be actor, is practicing his lines on the tennis court, in the dressing room, in his car. He doesn’t have a particularly good memory, it appears, and he (the character) isn’t a very good actor. He is, however, a very good waiter. And despite his request to leave his job early for an audition, his manager Kim (Michelle Grisaffi) insists that he stay on to train another new waiter. He’s tired of “newbies,” but when she points out the victim, Kevin changes his mind. Drew (Matthew Ludwinski), a “wide-eyed Midwest transplant” (as the IMDb plot summary describes him) is a beautiful piece of flesh.

    Kevin engages quickly, accordingly, with this innocent “newbie,” who seems almost to nervously gush under the gaze of his new trainer. And within moments they’re in the bathroom together, soon after planning for another session—a hike on the very next day.

    Drew, unfortunately, is a clumsy waiter, unable to figure out even how the soda hose works, let alone how to ring up dinners on the digital register. He’s awkward with the guests, spending far too much time at the tables telling corny jokes, unable to remember their orders, and prone to breaking plates. By the end of the day, Kevin has no other alternative but to suggest to Kim that he needs to be fired. Did she actually interview him, he asks.

     Kim’s managerial method, it appears, is simply to let the trainee continue without finally assigning him real work hours: “Eventually they catch on.” But Kevin feels her method is cruel, and besides this rookie kid is so naïve that it’s doubtful he’ll even know what’s happening. The job to tell the cute boy that he’s fired falls to his fellow waiter. And the most convenient time to tell him is during their hike in the wilderness (Los Angeles’ Griffith Park) the following day.

     Out of doors, Drew seems to be even more addle-brained than he is an in-doors server. He alternates his conversation with his expressions of excitement for having found the job of his dreams—he wants a career in “hospitality”—and his total adulation of Kevin, at one point removing his own shirt to display his stunningly developed torso at the very moment Kevin is attempting to mention that he might not be suited for working in a restaurant.

     The two engage in a kind cat-and-mouse conversation wherein Drew keeps expressing his delight in having landed in such a perfect place in his life, while Kevin attempts to bring him down to earth through vague philosophically-inspired language. Every time Kevin edges closer to expressing the truth, Drew climbs out upon a new limb of possibilities—quite literally, in fact, when we see him suddenly standing in the hollow of a tree at the very edge of a cliff overlooking the San Fernando Valley. When Kevin joins him, Drew finally moves in for a kiss, pulling back as, just as suddenly, he falls, it appears, to his death.

     Kevin is so stunned and horrified by what has just happened that he doesn’t even think rationally, does not call the police or even look down into the vast plain below to see if he might spot the body. And when two previously unseen observers comment on what has just happened, he runs.

     At work, he is now as confused and ineffectual as Drew was the day before, walking around as if in a daze, forgetting orders, at one point even delivering up a plate of food to the chest of a guest—who just happens to be a “Secret Shopper.” Kim, knowing that the owners will demand it, has no choice but to fire him, offering him a small “parting” reparation.

     It appears that, without a job and surely unable to find a gig in acting, Kevin is now in the situation that faces so many young men and women who flock to Los Angeles with hopes of “making it” either in the movies or in one of LA’s numerous other fields of commerce. He is now the “newbie” terrified that might not even be able to pay the rent. As he drives by his old place of employment—we could see this coming—he spots Drew serving up tables quite competently.

     Writer / actors Ludwinski and Spencer’s film may not be quite unbelievable, but given its fairly high production values, the handsome duo at the center of the tale, and its black comic overtones, The Good Waiter is a fairly enjoyable short LGBTQ flick.

      I can’t imagine what the writers and director did to warrant the plethora of highly negative comments of viewers on IMDb and Letterboxd. I’ve seen far better audience comments for absolutely embarrassing student films. The Good Waiter is certainly not profound fare, but it’s successful as an ironic journeyman work in the mode of Robert Altman’s The Player and Joe Orton before him. And Spencer has gone on to act in several other films I’ve reviewed, including Bamber’s Kept Boy (2017) and Reid Watterer’s The Unsure Masseur (2021). Ludwinski had appeared in several films previous to this one, including Going Down in LA-LA Land (2011).

 

Los Angeles, March 7, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2023).