CAKE
DIRECTOR: Daniel Barnz
CAST: Jennifer Aniston, Adriana Barraza, Anna Kendrick, Sam Worthington
CLASSIFICATION: 16 DLV
RUNNING TIME: 102 minutes
***
Allow me to preface this piece by declaring that I have never understood the hype surrounding Jennifer Aniston. Sure, she was passable as the ditsy Rachel in the ensemble project that was Friends. But beyond her hair and her ill-fated marriage to Brad Pitt, she has always struck me as yet another in Hollywood’s endless assembly line of cutesy girl-next-door types, whose acting ability (such that it is) invariably involves portraying themselves, albeit in different settings.
Even when attempting to shake her saintly image in films like Derailed and The Break-Up, Aniston never quite managed to hit the mark. But then Cake was thrown into the mix.
Talk among Tinseltown pundits was that this could finally be the role that would see her being taken seriously as an actress and set her on the path to award-winning success. Which it has. Kinda. If one can classify an aggressive marketing campaign involving cup cakes being sent to the voting committee for the Screen Actors’ Guild awards as “successful”.
Decidedly glammed down for the part, Aniston manages a respectable interpretation of Claire Simmons, a pill-popping depressive, addicted to the pain of her existence as much as she is the pharmaceuticals intended to ease her physical, if not her emotional, suffering.
An insurmountable tragedy has led to her effectively finding herself alone in the world, with only her acerbic personality and loyal Mexican housekeeper, Silvana (Barraza), for company, as she lurches along in her lush Hollywood Hills home.
We catch Claire at the rock-bottom stage of her self-destruction, where neither casual sex nor the drugs work, they just make it worse (with apologies to The Verve). Her watershed moment comes when a member of her support group, Nina (portrayed by a menacing Kendrick, who also steps away from her typically chick-flick guise) commits suicide.
Nina’s death triggers a dispirited questioning in Claire, which pushes her even deeper into her depression and leaves her wondering just why she’s subjecting herself to the endless agony and torment of her own life – helped along by hallucinations of Nina’s ghost – when she, too, could take the easy way out.
While Aniston offers a sturdy performance, with Claire’s suffering almost palpable (the rationale for a three-, rather then two-star rating), the script’s over-baked feel leaves the film as a whole lacking in flavour. All of which is not helped by glaring inconsistencies in the story that seem to play to stereotypes, rather than remain true to the project at hand. These include Silvana’s sudden diatribe regarding Claire supposedly treating her like a dog, when in point of fact, Silvana is the one person Claire actually has been kind to.
The movie toys with themes of heartbreak, abandonment, loss and self-loathing, sprinkled with darkly comedic moments that certainly taste of potential.
Overall, however, this is one cake that fails to rise to the occasion.
If you liked Sylvia or Enduring Love, this will be to your taste.