At a support group for people suffering from chronic pain,
Claire (Jennifer Aniston) becomes obsessed with the suicide of another member
of the group. Popping pills in order to keep the pain at bay, and pushing
people away with her caustic attitude, Claire starts seeing the dead girl Nina
(Anna Kendrick) and even having conversations with her. Her long suffering
housekeeper Silvana puts up with Claire’s mistreatment due to a touching sense
of loyalty and sympathy, but as Claire ups her dose of prescription pills and
begins a relationship with Nina’s grieving husband and son, things being to
spiral towards tragedy.
Cake is a film full of grief and loss. The characters have
all been touched by tragedy before the film even begins. Many face a fork in
the road; the decision of whether to take the path that leads to salvation or to
suicide. Claire once had everything and the details of her past tragedy are
slowly drip fed throughout the film, allowing the audience to sympathise with
this initially very hard to like woman. She is damaged goods, but Cake is also
a film of unexpected saviours. Her relationship with her housekeeper seems to
have come almost exactly out of Sandra Bullock’s character from Crash, but doesn’t
make her arc any less endearing.
While Aniston hasn’t bagged an Oscar nomination for her role
as Claire, it’s a commendable departure from many of her more straightforwardly
comedic appearances in films. She is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast
with Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy being great in a handful of scenes
between them, and Sam Worthington is surprisingly good, bringing some real sensitivity to his
character. With so many characters dealing with death, Cake is not a fun film. However, the well drawn characters and strong performances make this a film that is sweet without being too sickly.
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