Adrienne Shelly: Ultimate Indie Movie Girl

I was shocked, SHOCKED by her murder.

I’m trying to remember, wasn’t she murdered right about the time Waitress came out?

i think it was in production and Cheryl Hines had to finish it.

This dropped today and I watched it and blubbered multiple times. I thought it was very well done and just so heartbreaking. I think her murderer may have actually been shorter then her, and the forensic doctor said that she desperately fought for her life, how the initial police investigation totally overlooked that is staggering.

The daughter is stunningly beautiful, even more so then either of her parents. I loved when she met Keri Russell who talked about filming their scenes together in Waitress. The bittersweet achievement of getting to Sundance without her was heartbreaking. I hadn’t known she was good friends with Paul Rudd.

I think the most moving thing was her husband had three stepchildren and two marriages prior to marrying Adrienne, and one of his children, a 12 year old son, insisted on going and being with his 2 1/2 year old stepsister because she needed him and then moved in with them and never left. The understanding of the exwife and his mother in that situation must have been infinite.

Wasn’t she strangled because she complained about a neighbor playing their music too loud?

You don’t do that in New York.

R5 No, in the prison interview he admitted that he was desperate for money to send to his mother who’s house had been taken by the bank and in his construction jobs he had been stealing from people’s apartments to get money to send to her. He entered her apartment and she caught him as he was going through her purse and they fought for it and she started screaming “Police” and he panicked and covered her mouth and strangled her.

R5 I’m in Queens and two doors down they are renovating an apartment and there’s all kinds of noise and banging loud enough that the person, from Florida, I was on speaker call with was shocked. In a fake Brooklyn accent, I had to explain the difference, he said I needed to go over there and tell them to “knock it off!” And I said, “Oh no, we don’t do that in New York unless you want to get murdered!” It’s ingrained as part of the urban myth that snitches get stitches or worse here and it’s just not done, unless you’re an upper East side white lady complaining to the doorman.

I can remember this was a phase where I would get the Post when getting breakfast and she was mentioned many times, I don't know where it could've been but there were chat-somethings that everyone bashed her on for being a pain in the ass gentrifier who had no business bitching. Clearly before the conviction.

I'd only seen her in 'Big Girls Don't Cry, They Get Even, but she was quite funny in it, from what I remember it was a funny movie, was a like a key-party disguised as a kids movie.

She had a 'face' and seriously great hair, just a unique look that worked on film, and I was always surprised she wasn't in more movies, didn't know she was really into the whole process as much as she was.

There was a very sanctimonious slant; I get it, she'll never know her daughter and her daughter was robbed of a mother, but she didn't lose her entire family, she has family, and that's more than can be said of other children orphaned by crime. Just painted that with a heavy hand IMO.

I’m really disappointed that HBO didn’t pick up a handful of her movies to show with the launch of the documentary, they are usually good about that. I was looking for the early Hal Hartley stuff, but I don’t think even Waitress is there, which is a real shame. Or they could have done a Go Pro of the musical and shown that and and jump on that bandwagon that Netflix and Apple+ have done.

When her stoic teenage daughter finally cried at the end of the film, I bawled like a baby. It was one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. A beautiful tribute.

OP thanks for sharing!

A friend knew her through downtown theatre circles (back around the time she was making movies with Hal Hartley) and said she was just lovely, a very sweet person.

PS: she actually had her own NYC theatre company for a while, but I cannot recall the name.

Honestly I loved both of them, but in a way I always felt that Adrienne and Rosanna Arquette kind of cancelled each other out. There wasn’t room enough for both, so we some how ended up with none.