Oh quiet down, Team Jennifer fans: your favorite Friends star wasn't snubbed
by the Oscars for her grief-stricken performance in
Cake. That's not to
say she isn't deserving of some measure of kudos for taking on a role much
darker than we've seen since she was briefly an indie darling for
The Good
Girl. Aniston does deserve credit for that, but the film itself is an
inelegant look at misery and depression that holds her back from reaching real
emotional depths.
The oddly-titled
Cake is just as odd of a nut to crack. At times it's
so bleak and humorless that to watch it can be a real drag, but then the next
moment it resembles a snarkier version of
Spanglish, which is about as lame as that
sounds. Aniston takes a break from the lame rom-coms and gives an
intermittently powerful performance as Claire Simmons, a woman scarred in just
about every way imaginable. Both physically and emotionally she is a damaged
woman, who hides her pain by the constant taking of prescription pills and a
"who gives a crap" attitude about everything. That includes her
treatment of loyal housekeeper Silvana (Adrianna Barrazza), who functions as a
sort of cheerful enabler to Claire's negativity. Claire is so terrible she's
lost just about everyone: her husband (Chris Messina) has long since moved on;
her support group wants her to seek help elsewhere; and even her physical
therapist (Mamie Gummer) thinks she's given up.
While the story of an extreme depressive's turn towards redemption can be a
powerful one if told with an honest accounting of struggles involved,
Cake
takes an unnecessarily quirky route and never quite recovers. After nearly
killing herself on drugs, Claire begins to see visions of and have combative
conversations with Nina (Anna Kendrick), a former member of her self-help group
who committed suicide. Nina becomes obsessed with Nina's life, visiting her
former home and encountering her widowed husband Roy (Sam Worthington), who
seems remarkably open to being stalked by an unstable woman. He doesn't seem to
mind that she keeps showing up out of the blue, and Claire doesn't mind using
him to make herself feel better. She doesn't mind using anybody, for that
matter. Claire is a user, first and foremost.
Claire is also not especially likable. She's not nearly as funny as the
screenplay wants her to be, and every attempt to make her so comes across as
mean-spirited and selfish. There isn't enough consistency in her character to
make us pity her, and it's a complete disservice to Aniston who dives into
Claire's grief with both feet. We've never seen her play a character this
unhappy, this sour, this defeated by life, and it's startling given the sexy
comedic roles she's had of late. While it doesn't rank with some of the more
challenging female performances that did get Oscar nominations, Aniston has set
herself up for greater dramatic roles in the future. With the warm, comforting
Barrazza they make for an interesting oil & water duo to watch when not
tripped up by shapeless screenplay. Unfortunately,
Cake is an
unsatisfying meal too unsure tonally and lacking in any serious revelations on
breaking free of despair.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
