MOVIE REVIEW: CAKE

0

CAKE

I know this dumb film came and went with not much notice, but I had written this in January, when I attended a screening of it, and kept putting off publishing it because more timely topics kept coming up. But every time I see the title in print somewhere, I realize that I still want to get my thoughts on it off my chest.

I apologize for the late warning of not to waste your money on Cake, but at least now you’ll know not to waste your time seeing it when it comes to TV, in like, a second!

Screen Shot 2015-04-05 at 10.43.16 AMIf this is what they were going for, as stated in the screening invite, they missed: “Cake takes us into the darkly funny world of Claire Bennett (Jennifer Aniston) who initiates a dubious relationship with a widower (Sam Worthington) while confronting fantastical hallucinations of his dead wife (Anna Kendrick). With her feisty housekeeper and caretaker (Adriana Barraza) ever at her side, Claire searches for human connection and self-forgiveness in this tale of personal redemption.”

Here are my quick thoughts on Cake, listed in two categories:

THE PERFORMANCES

Let me state the obvious–Jennifer Aniston is no Daniel Day-Lewis!!!

She was still playing “Rachel,” (from Friends,) but older, chubbier, a bit more subdued, and with scars on her face.

She did get the being-in-pain part down, though. (And, I do know that because, unfortunately, I’m very familiar with physical pain these days.)

Anna Kendrick was awful. Her part was badly-written to begin with, but her performance was just blank.

But it was great to see Adriana Barraza, playing the housekeeper, again. I loved her so much in Babel almost a decade ago. (She was nominated for all the film awards that year, including the Oscar, but sadly for her, so was Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls.)

And I could have looked at and listened to Sam Worthington all night. But the story would have been so much more effective if the character was a nebbishy man, rather than a young studly dude.

THE STORY

What a dumb title; I’m sure they thought it was profound.

This movie is hole city!

It was the shortest movie I’ve seen this season, but felt like the longest.

I guess we were supposed to divine what exactly happened in this woman’s life before the film because they sure didn’t make it clear enough. (I’m pretty sure I knew, but people could not stop asking me what I thought happened, for about a month after it came out!)

Are we to believe this rich woman, in terribly tragic circumstances, had no friends nor family? At all???

I felt for the character, though; I have chronic back pain, so I know how it is. But no meds help, and I hate depictions of patients popping them like M&Ms. If they helped as much as this movie made it out like they do, we’d all feel a lot better. And be prescription drug junkies!

Her first bed scene, where she was having such trouble even moving in bed, is exactly what I go through on a daily basis. I just didn’t know what it looked like on the outside. Poor Mr. X; he has to see that all the time.

It was never made clear as to why she went after her deceased pal’s husband. The whole thing made no sense.

I also hated the wardrobe. Just because someone is in chronic pain and depressed doesn’t mean they dress in beige every day.

I can understand not washing hair because it may be too painful, (even though broken-backed I wouldn’t be caught dead with dirty hair like that!,) but since hers is a short ‘do, and her housekeeper does everything else for her, wouldn’t the woman also help wash her hair occasionally? Or drive her boss to a salon to have it done? This film takes place in LA, and is modern-day, so she could always have a service come to her house once a week! If she can get dressed, and have sex!, (which she did in the film, with her gardener,) she can have someone wash her short hair! (Maybe not to have sex with the gardener, but to leave the house in general.)

And that’s it for this review. I already wasted enough of my time on watching Cake; I don’t want to spend anymore writing about it!

Share.

Leave A Reply