CAKE
Cast: Jennifer
Aniston, Sam Worthington, Anna Kendrick, Adriana Barraza
Director: Daniel Barnz
92 min
Director: Daniel Barnz
92 min
Jennifer Aniston may have felt she would be suitable casting for the role of a woman badly coping through chronic back pain and complex life issues with her countenance displaying scars and serious wear and tear, however – she was badly advised, as her performance, the puerile, snail-paced script and the whole film itself, are nothing short of a disaster. The tone is indecisive as it veers awkwardly between light comedy and tragedy throughout its seemingly endless ninety-odd minutes. Aniston plays Claire, in attendance albeit somewhat reluctantly, within a support group for women suffering life trauma. Asked to share her feelings about the recent suicide of a group member, a young mother named Nina (Anna Kendrick) who threw herself off a high bridge over a motorway on to heavy traffic, Claire sneers at the resulting chaos with that ludicrous and annoying American utterance: “Way to go, Nina!”
Despite her attitude being the result of severe physical and emotional pain, her flippancy results in her being dropped from the group. The usual mediocre script laziness of excessive exposition rears its ugly head on more than one occasion in the screenplay and Claire is herself not far from the point of making a final desperate act. She tries to numb her discomfort with the prescription painkillers she’s now hooked on, and nags her Mexican housekeeper Silvana (Adriana Barraza, whose performance is the one redeeming feature in this sorry mess of a picture), the one person who really cares for her, to go with her on a day trip to Mexico to illicitly stock up on drugs. Most of the other people in Claire’s life have been driven away by her constantly dour attitude, including her husband (Chris Messina), a decent man who just couldn’t tolerate her any more. Also her physical therapist (Mamie Gummer) and the leader of Claire’s now former support group (Felicity Huffman).
But Claire finds extraordinary company in the ghost of Nina, who for no apparent reason constantly re-appears in everyday situations. Claire decides to track down Nina’s widowed husband Roy (Sam Worthington), who is now struggling to raise their young son on his own. Pacing and tone are all over the place - as one minute, the film reaches for scathing black comedy, the kind where the protagonist asks a grieving relative at a graveside where he bought the granite for the head-stone because it's apparently exactly what she needs for a planned kitchen renovation. Then comes a naff attempt to pull at your heartstrings with the most maudlin kind of melodrama. Pitiful stuff.
