Cake (2014)

Don't listen to the crappy reviews. This movie is PHENOMENAL.

This movie is very well done. I feel that Jennifer Aniston without a doubt was the perfect actress for the role and her performance on this piece of art speaks tons about her abilities. I feel that the story was missing but nevertheless it is very raw, discusses an important topic and I feel it shows us how important attitude can be.If you have not seen this movie yet you should see it at least to see how convincing and professional Jennifer Aniston can be. Adriana Barraza was also excellent. This is beautiful art.

Despite a daring performance from Jennifer Aniston (though ultimately one-note) the movie fails to take off. It's the screenplay. It's the unrelenting darkness and pessimism. Maybe fewer hallucinations and more flashbacks to happier times would have helped.

Jennifer Aniston flexes her dramatic chops in this film about a woman struggling with chronic pain and depression and does an admirable job of it."Cake" never completely shakes off the patina of T.V. movie that settles over it like a thin layer of dust, but it does do a good job of parceling out key plot elements over the course of its running time and constantly shifting its audience's perception of what causes the protagonist to behave the way she does. Of course no film is going to cast an actress as fundamentally lovable as Jennifer Aniston without making her character sympathetic in the end, so it's no surprise that we learn things about her that justify her horrible behavior in the earlier portion of the film. What we learn isn't exactly plot twist material, but it does provide the most dramatically satisfying portion of the film's narrative, so I won't spoil it in this review.One thing that does bug me greatly in retrospect as I think back about this film and other films that depict people suffering with physical and emotional conditions is the film's implication that recovery is simply a matter of deciding that one wants to get better. In films like "Cake," characters are led through a series of progressively bad situations of their own making until the screenplay decides they've learned their lesson and are ready to just turn things around. This feels disingenuous and possibly utterly demoralizing to people struggling with these things in the real world who watch these stories about people who seem so much more capable than themselves of taking their own health, whether it be physical or emotional, into their hands. It's not that I resist happy or hopeful endings, but I would prefer them to be tempered a bit more by reality.But overall I enjoyed this movie, much more than its somewhat lukewarm reception upon release led me to believe I would. Aniston generated some Oscar buzz at the time, and while I don't know that I think she was necessarily robbed by not getting a nomination, her performance is certainly as good as any number of performances by other actors who have been nominated in the past. Adriana Barazza gives a lovely performance as Aniston's housekeeper, and Sam Worthington is good as someone else coping with grief. William H. Macy appears in a blink and you'll miss him cameo.Grade: A-