★★★½☆
3 December 2014
This article is a review of CAKE.Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014. (For more information, click here.)
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“I pay her to care about me,” Claire Simmons (Jennifer Aniston)
Evicted from a workshop on lasting chronic pain, with the recommendation that she find a group that serves her anger issues, is a hilarious opening, that has Aniston’s in your face lead cut to the bone unaccompanied by hesitation. Covered in scars, think George Clooney in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN but replace tattoos with hardened tissue, and limping, Aniston might have been slumming for an Oscar had it not been for the tongue whiplash at her disposal – an award is still not out of the question at her engaging out of the blue performance. Refusing plastic surgery to soften her wounds, they are displayed as outward manifestation of inward suffering. Sentimentality is given short shrift.
Evicted from a workshop on lasting chronic pain, with the recommendation that she find a group that serves her anger issues, is a hilarious opening, that has Aniston’s in your face lead cut to the bone unaccompanied by hesitation. Covered in scars, think George Clooney in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN but replace tattoos with hardened tissue, and limping, Aniston might have been slumming for an Oscar had it not been for the tongue whiplash at her disposal – an award is still not out of the question at her engaging out of the blue performance. Refusing plastic surgery to soften her wounds, they are displayed as outward manifestation of inward suffering. Sentimentality is given short shrift.
Drip-feeding narrative enticement parsimoniously has the audience concentrating. Keeping an emergency stash of painkiller prescriptions hidden behind a vestibule painting, lying to Dr Gayle (Lucy Punch) about the habit, and needing a trip to Mexico to purchase more, leaves little room for doubt about dependency. (Don’t worry, we are not in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM territory.) Unable to sleep, Claire has visions of a woman, Nina (Anna Kendrick), from her old support group, who killed herself. Patrick Swayze à la GHOST she ain’t. Soaked in even greater sarcastic evisceration than her imaginer blurts, Nina sporadically delivers un-sugar-coated home truths. At one point, she asks Claire why she hasn’t killed herself. Gallows humour is not in short supply.
Ex-husband Jason (Chris Messina) clearly still loves his former spouse, and caring housekeeper Silvana (Adriana Barraza) wants reconciliation, but the walls have been built deep and high. Some sort of tragedy has left Clare in a state of brittle defensiveness, lashing out (in self-loathing?) at any modicum of compassion. (Even Meryl Streep’s daughter Mamie Gummer, as physiotherapist Bonnie, is not safe. Maybe the vicinity of any Streep near Academy Award chances raises the hackles. LOL. *I’ll get my coat*) Casual sex with random handyman does little to further numb or distract.
Listing and drifting, Claire finds purpose in tracking down Nina’s widowed husband Roy (Sam Worthington – actually acting competently) and young son. Seeking solace, which cannot be found in her husband, Claire understands when Roy states rather movingly, “I can’t save you. I can barely save myself and my kid.” Fathoming Claire is a job for the protagonist herself at the same as the audience.
Naff title aside, CAKE is honeyed enough to let the medicine of grief and pain be swallowed.