FilmSnobReviews

Title: Cake
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Daniel Barnz
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Sam Worthington, Adriana Barraza
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins

What It Is: Claire Bennett (Aniston, in a Golden Globe nominated performance) is a woman addicted to pain killers. They make her basically useless for everyday life, including goign to work as a lawyer, which is her normal occupation. It seems to have put a strain on her marriage, we don’t know exactly what caused her pain but as we watch it slowly unravels. She’s not alone in her problem (though she’d like to be) as she’s a part of a therapy group. In it another member, Nina (Anna Kendrick) has killed herself. This is something Claire become obsessed with to the point where she is over at Nina’s former house hanging out with her Widower (Worthington). That is whenever she can get her maid Silvana (Barraza) to drive her around.

What We Think: This is a film driven by it’s lead actress. Jennifer Aniston shows that she has the chops to carry a film that isn’t solely a comedy. Up until now all we’d seen her do dramatically is The Good Girl with Jake Gyllenhaal and that was ten plus years ago. Unfortunately there isn’t much else to the film. It tries to be meta with the Nina character but it comes off schlocky, there’s a flirtation in it that didn’t work. Just a lot of moving pieces that didn’t really hit the mark. Having said all that the pacing makes this film feel a lot longer then it is and it just feels like it never gets going.

Our Grade: C+, Aniston deserved a nomination for the Oscar despite the film around her not being all that great. Worthington proves that he’s more then just a big budget guy and turns in a very understated performance. See Cake for Aniston’s breakout turn, but keep those expectations quelled as the film around isn’t very good. Our shoutout is going to go to Adriana Barraza for her fantastic turn here. Very underrated performance. Lastly Cake is a look into an obsession not often touched about and that dependence on prescription medication and the depths one will go to get their “fix”.