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Cake finds Jennifer Aniston making the most of an overdue opportunity to test her dramatic chops, but it lacks sufficient depth or warmth to recommend for all but her most ardent fans.

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Daniel Barnz

Jennifer Aniston

Claire Simmons

Adriana Barraza

Sam Worthington

Mamie Gummer

Felicity Huffman

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Review by Brian Eggert November 25, 2018

Cake  is about one woman’s inability to find closure from trauma when her physical aftereffects are a constant reminder of her psychological scars. Although it might’ve been an unflinching portrait of a borderline alcoholic, drug-addicted, grief-stricken woman attempting to numb her emotional trauma and chronic pain, it plays more like an accessible dark comedy, complete with a plucky score and hopeful ending. Released in 2014, it’s meant as a deglamorized showpiece for Jennifer Aniston. She plays a pleasantly unpleasant pain sufferer who, irritable and sarcastic, takes her anguish and anger out on those around her. In Aniston’s serious role and the atmosphere of ruin,  Cake wants to be edgy and genuine, to expose raw and visceral feelings. But it keeps from mining the most searing dramatic soil because, given the nature of the tragedy which it orbits, confronting them head-on may prove uncomfortable to audiences.

Jennifer Aniston stars as Claire, a Los Angeles native who lives in the wake of a car accident some time ago, an event whose full consequence, a dead child, is hinted at in small doses as the story unfolds. In the first scene, Claire attends a support group for sufferers of chronic pain, one of whom, Nina (Anna Kendrick), has killed herself by jumping from a freeway overpass. With disarmingly funny sarcasm, Claire refuses to acknowledge her grief, enough to get her kicked out of the group. Claire’s pain, physical and mental, isolates her. Those in her support system, including the rattled support group leader (Felicity Huffman), a fed-up physical therapist (Mamie Gummer), an artificially encouraging doctor (Lucy Punch), and a concerned but separated husband (Chris Messina) try to help, but ultimately keep their distance. Most people who know her call her “fucked up” or the c-word, and she copes with a regular diet of Percocet, Oxycontin, and white wine. Her self-induced detachment is reflected in the repeated presence of a random possum by her pool at night—a creature known to play dead when confronted.

If Claire has a true friend, it’s her Mexican housekeeper, Silvana (Adriana Barraza). While wagging her finger at some of Claire’s life choices, Silvana also serves as Claire’s cook and driver. She’s the heart of the film; it’s her devotion to the protagonist that makes the viewer believe there’s something under the abrasive exterior worth saving. But the screenplay by Patrick Tobin barely explores Silvana, aside from a brief glimpse into her modest homelife and her single gripe about being underpaid. Her character exists in the script because Claire needs someone to love her unconditionally in order to appear sympathetic; without her, the more elusive elements of the plot wouldn’t be enough to keep us invested in Claire’s situation. Silvana, stripped of much agency, remains the doting Other, a troublesome cliché on par with magical black characters or noble savages—tropes designed to help white protagonists achieve their goals and work through their emotional baggage. Meanwhile, Claire, who has seemingly unlimited financial resources, can’t be bothered to give her only friend a raise.

Director Daniel Barnz—of the modern-day fairy tale  Beastly  (2011) and the feel-good dramedy  Won’t Back Down  (2012), about inner-city schools—means well with this indie production. Barnz and Tobin address the underrepresented condition of chronic pain, which can lead to further consequences (drug addiction, etc.). However, the writing here seeps into the dramatically precise and banal. Consider a scene that finds Claire alone, listening to music that evokes a painful memory; she shuts off the music and says to herself, “Enough with the fucking honesty”—ironically enough, an incredibly hollow line. Elsewhere, Claire loses herself in loopy dreams from her pill-popping, but her dreams are the stuff of dull psychoanalysis: fragmentary images that serve as puzzle-pieces into her mental state. Barnz applies a formal competence to the production, primarily due to the lensing by cinematographer Rachel Morrison. Claire’s waking dreams, for instance, adopt subtle color cues from the surroundings, such as the yellow-hued appearance of Nina in a diner with yellow panes of decorative glass.

After epitomizing the 1990s and early 2000s on  Friends , Aniston has never had much success shedding her America’s Sweetheart image. Then again, if the omnipresence of lowbrow rom-coms on her résumé is any indication, she’s not interested in changing her image. Every time she appears in something out of the ordinary—like 2002’s  The Good Girl , in which she plays an unhappily married grocery store cashier drawn to a new, disturbed employee—she counteracts it with a half-dozen titles from  Rumor Has it  (2005) to  The Bounty Hunter   (2010) to  Just Go with It   (2011). Getting past her frequently poor taste in projects, Aniston glimmers in a few rare examples where she turns down her accessible charm to play moody or beleaguered characters far removed from her usual crowd-pleasing persona.  Cake ‘s departure seems as though it was engineered for Oscar consideration. Aniston served as an executive producer and, following an aggressive awards season campaign, she was not nominated in the Best Actress category at that year’s Academy Awards. In fact, the film was generally ill-received by critics and audiences if the low scores on Metacritic and Rottentomatoes mean anything.

Despite its impressive cast and a fine, but hardly daring central performance,  Cake  has been written and shot as though the filmmakers think they’re creating an elaborate dramatic puzzle. But since the plotting is at times achingly predictable, the structure, which withholds information such as the source of Claire’s pain for almost no added impact, proves as convoluted as the  everything’s gonna be all right ending. An indication of how badly Cake  miscalculates its appeal occurs during the end credits, when the letters “A” in each name appear turned on their left side. It’s meant as a  cute reference to how Claire rides in reclined car seats throughout the film, yet it also trivializes what should be an unflinching detail of her physical and mental states. Given that, we must ask why would members of the cast and crew want a letter in their name turned on its side, especially if that represents Claire at her worst? It’s an odd if inconsequential detail that leaves the viewer perplexed about the filmmakers’ intentions, if not about the credits then for the entire tone of the film.

(Editor’s Note:  This review was commissioned on Patreon. Thank you for your support! )

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Toronto Film Review: ‘Cake’

Daniel Barnz's dark comedy-drama stars Jennifer Aniston as a woman struggling with chronic pain.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

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A strong if self-consciously deglammed performance from Jennifer Aniston deserves more honest story treatment than it gets in “ Cake ,” a darkly amusing but overly calculated comedy-drama about a Los Angeles woman whose struggles with chronic pain have made her a royal pain. Approaching such heavy issues as suicide, grief, separation and pill addiction with a disarming sense of humor, director Daniel Barnz and screenwriter Patrick Tobin attempt to pull off an emotional bait-and-switch by suddenly revealing a more sympathetic side to their anti-heroine, falling back on one of the hoariest and most overused of movie cliches in the process. Although Aniston and other cast names will draw distrib and audience interest, this manipulatively layered “Cake” probably won’t rise to the occasion in limited theatrical play and VOD rotation.

From the opening scene of her annoyingly touchy-feely, I-respect-your-feelings support group for sufferers of chronic pain, Claire Simmons (Aniston) has the audience firmly on her side. While everyone else expresses shock and sadness over the loss of one of their own, Nina, who recently jumped to her death from a freeway overpass, Claire responds with ruthless, refreshing sarcasm (“Way to go, Nina!”). You almost have to wonder if she’s considered the suicide option herself, given the acute intensity of her physical agony — something she nurses constantly with painkillers that are in constant need of replenishing, and rarely through legal means.

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Helping her out in that regard is her Mexican immigrant housekeeper, Silvana (a wonderful Adriana Barraza), who, despite her concerned grumbling about some of Claire’s less defensible life choices (like screwing the hunky gardener), is the closest thing the woman has to a best friend, or indeed any friend at all. (At one point, when Claire runs out of ways to refill her prescription, she and Silvana hightail it down to Mexico in search of drugs.) But that changes not long after Claire begins to experience disturbing yet intriguing hallucinatory visions of Nina (Anna Kendrick), spurring her to get in touch with the dead woman’s husband, Roy (Sam Worthington), and their young son.

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The sequence in which Claire first introduces herself to Roy, on some clearly phony pretext, affords one of the film’s most offhandedly amusing moments. It’s also one of many moments throughout the story that reveal Claire to be much more than just “a raving bitch,” as she calls herself. Sure, she’s white, rich and privileged, and so whiny and pessimistic about her condition that she’s already driven away her physical therapist (Mamie Gummer), her support-group leader (Felicity Huffman) and a husband (Chris Messina) who clearly still cares about her a great deal. But she also turns out to have a heart, a sense of humor, a playful sense of adventure and, based on a brief rant about Orange County conservatives, impeccable liberal politics.

To be sure, Aniston leads with her scowl here, in the sort of performance that often gets called “brave” but is more accurately described as a well-executed change of pace. But despite all the behind-the-scenes efforts to make the actress look as dowdy and unattractive as possible, complete with dark, stringy hair (unlike to spur another “Friends” haircut phenomenon), sallow complexion and mysterious facial scar, her natural spark can’t help but shine through all that fastidious uglification. Claire’s real crime, apparently, is that she says whatever is on her mind with zero concern for how others will receive it, which may make her a difficult person to encounter in real life, but gives her a strong enough rooting interest where the audience is concerned.

Returning to the independent realm for the first time since 2008’s “Phoebe in Wonderland” (he’s since collected Hollywood paychecks on “Beastly” and “Won’t Back Down”), Barnz brings a nicely polished touch to a production with a subtler, more authentic sense of L.A. atmosphere than most. Amid the supporting cast, Barraza manages to push past the stereotype of the Hispanic cleaning lady to achieve a fully rounded characterization (as she also did in the very different “Babel”), and Barnz allows her to walk away with perhaps the movie’s funniest scene. William H. Macy has a brief, startling turn in a role that it would be imprudent to divulge, while Kendrick is somewhat underused in the ghostly daydream sequences, though she does get to deliver the anecdote that touchingly explains the movie’s title.

Fittingly enough for a movie about addiction, “Cake” is predicated on repeated patterns of behavior  — the compulsive manner in which Claire keeps checking her secret pill stash, or her habit of reclining all the way back in the passenger seat while Silvana drives, the pain being too great for her to sit up like a normal person. (Among other things, this is a movie whose final shot can be seen coming a mile away.) Some of these repetitions, it turns out, also serve as clues, forming a trail of narrative breadcrumbs meant to lead viewers into the true heart of the story, and to suddenly position Aniston’s antiheroine in a warmer, more forgiving light. It’s a clever ruse but a hollow one, not revealing or deepening Claire’s character so much as reducing it to an artfully scrambled puzzle. At the last minute, “Cake” becomes a film not about physical pain, but a different kind entirely, and one about which it doesn’t have all that much new to say.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 8, 2014. Running time: 92 MIN.

• Production: A Cinelou Films presentation of a Cinelou Films, Echo Films, We're Not Brothers Prods. production in association with Shenghua Entertainment. Produced by Ben Barnz, Kristin Hahn, Courtney Solomon, Mark Canton. Executive producers, Jennifer Aniston, Shyam Madiraju. Co-producers, Stephanie Caleb, Scott Karol, Wayne Marc Godfrey.
• Crew: Directed by Daniel Barnz. Screenplay, Patrick Tobin. Camera (color), Rachel Morrison; editors, Kristina Boden, Michelle Harrison; production designer, Joseph Garrity; art director, Brittany Bradford; set decorator, Lisa Son; costume designer, Karyn Wagner; sound, Steven Morrow; supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer, Myron Nettinga; special effects coordinator, Gary Monak; stunt coordinator, Stacy Courtney; associate producers, Babak Eftekhari, assistant director, David Ticotin; casting, Mary Vernieu, Lindsay Graham.
• With: Jennifer Aniston, Adriana Barraza, Mamie Gummer, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Chris Messina, Lucy Punch, Britt Robertson, Paula Cale, Ashley Crow, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Camille Guaty, Allen Maldonado, Camille Mana, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Anna Kendrick. (English, Spanish dialogue)

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CAKE Review

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Perhaps it’s better that Cake will be remembered (if it’s remembered at all) for the movie Jennifer Aniston used to try and get an Oscar nomination.  I have nothing against Aniston, but her actions mirror this deeply cynical and pointless film.  Preying on the lives of people who suffer chronic pain, Daniel Barnz ’s charade of a picture is at turns obvious, trite, and pandering.  There’s only the façade of emotion as its hollow protagonist wanders through a shell of a picture trying to elicit our emotions simply because she’s sad.

Claire Bennett (Aniston) suffers from chronic pain caused by a to-be-announced accident that left her scarred and childless.  The revelation that a member in her support group, Nina ( Anna Kendrick ), has committed suicide leads Claire to wonder if it would be better if she ended her life too, but in the meantime she’s content to spend her days popping painkillers, relying heavily on her housekeeper Silvana ( Adriana Barraza ), and napping.  When Claire starts having visions of Nina, it leads her to seek out Nina’s husband Roy ( Sam Worthington ), who’s in mourning but might still provide more emotional support.

Rather than bring us into Claire’s life, Barnz makes us another enabler of her behavior.  There’s nothing brazenly awful about Claire’s attitude, and mostly she seems like someone who’s having a crummy day.  She’s a bad person, but not in the sense of tearing people down as much as using them to achieve her own ends.  We know Claire has money—or at least enough money to afford a fairly nice house—but rather than hire a qualified caretaker, she uses Silvana, who’s cheaper and won’t stop her employer’s drug-seeking behavior.  And Roy could probably use the comfort of friends and family, but since he apparently has neither aside from his young son, a total stranger and her morbid curiosity is going to come bounding into his life.  The world revolves are Claire Bennett, and her pain supersedes anyone else’s concerns.  She has Silvana for simple tasks, Roy for emotional support, and us for pity.

We’re not meant to share in the character’s experience but bear witness to its pain and the power of the actress who has graced us with the strength and tenacity to play such a shallow role.  I don’t have anything against Jennifer Aniston, and I will give her credit for trying to go small with the role rather than earn her nomination for Most Acting (a strategy the Academy loves; see August: Osage County ).  But rather than disappear into the role, Aniston just disappears.  The script tells us everything we need to know from her physical scars representing emotional ones to her imagined conversations with Nina’s ghost that allow Claire to verbalize a thought process we already know.  If a woman is going to go to an overpass where another woman committed suicide, we don’t need a later conversation where she says, “Hey, I’m thinking about killing myself.”

The movie doesn’t even elicit groans, although it does feature some terrible lines like Claire asking her ex-husband ( Chris Messina ) to tell her “a story where everything works out for the evil queen in the end,” as if we still haven’t figured out that she’s filled with self-loathing but for the wrong reasons.  Barnz has overwhelming sympathy for his protagonist as he drains the palette, keeps the music low, and plays to the loneliness of the character.  Cake becomes locked into this misery that isn’t even a downward spiral, but a loop where her daily life is being depressed and wincing at physical pain but never giving us a glimpse at what that kind of life means beyond exploiting others.

Even if the movie wasn’t a showcase for an actress’ desire for a trophy or even if the Oscar didn’t even exist, Cake would still be the definition of a vanity project.  It’s self-involved in more ways than one, and has nothing but contempt for its audience as it clumsily conveys pain for pain’s sake without providing any emotional connection to its shallow characters.  Cake is painful but only in the sense that it’s a mindless chore.

• Sam Worthington
• Chris Messina

Cake Review

20 Feb 2015

101 minutes

If you know anything about Cake, you’ll know it is the performance that has put Jennifer Aniston at the heart of 2015’s awards conversation (in the end she missed out on Oscar). It is the kind of role that is routinely called “courageous” or a “departure”, but really it’s a gear change for the perennially underrated Aniston.

In owning caustic pill-popper Claire Simmons, Aniston shows slivers of the comedic energy that enlivened Friends so vividly but folds it into a compelling portrait of both physical and emotional anguish.

Aniston has done indie before — The Good Girl, Friends With Money — but never with such intensity. Sporting a wan complexion, light scars and skanky hair that plays like the Rachel hairstyle from hell, she flits between many colours — caustic, whiny, playful, forthright — but never descends into histrionics. She is a joy ripping apart her touchy-feely drug support group or manipulating her way into newly widowed Roy’s (Sam Worthington)life, but also earns warmer moments that belie Claire’s “raving bitch” reputation. It is a masterclass in understatement.

It’s a shame, then, that Anistonis not as well served by the film around her. For all its strong cast (Worthington, Anna Kendrick, William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman), Claire’s ‘journey’ from that of tortured soul to some kind of redemption occasionally drifts closer to sanitised TV movie territory than something heartfelt and real. Kendrick’s appearance as Nina’s ghost feels hoary, and while the source of Claire’s suffering is drip-fed as a puzzle throughout the film, when the revelation finally comes it feels obvious, only Aniston’s skill giving the moment any weight.

Rather than a study of pain, grief and addiction, the film arguably really works best as an odd-couple movie, sketching a warm relationship between Claire and her Mexican help and confidante, Silvana. Babel’s Adriana Barraza is terrific, an empathetic foil to Aniston’s icyness. When the pair are together, Cake fizzes.

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Movie Review: ‘Cake’

Jennifer Aniston stars in a new drama “Cake” as a person who suffers from chronic pain. Our film critic Neil Rosen filed this review.

Jennifer Aniston's dramatic turn in her latest film earned her a Golden Globe nomination. That movie recently opened in theaters and it is called "Cake."

Aniston plays Claire Bennett, a wealthy former attorney living in L.A. who now suffers from chronic pain. Claire is depressed and her insulting demeanor has alienated almost everyone around her. She has been kicked out of her support group for vocalizing her brutally honest feelings about a fellow member's suicide, her husband has left her and her physical therapist has dumped her as well. The only person who sticks by her side - who she is also quite mean to - is her housekeeper Silvana. The film follows Claire through her day-to-day life as she struggles with her pain. Addicted to prescription meds, she crosses the border to Mexico to obtain them illegally, after she exhausts all legitimate means back home.

Also in the mix is Nina, the ghost of the dead support group member who periodically appears as a hallucination of Claire's. Played by Anna Kendrick, she initially encourages Claire to join her by ending it all. Later, Nina the ghost gets on Claire's case for striking up a friendship with her widowed husband, played by Sam Worthington.

Writer Patrick Tobin and director Daniel Barnz have a made a movie that, despite the clichéd template, manages to hold your interest. The main reason for that are the fine performances, mainly by Aniston who pilots this thing. Deglamorizing herself, she does a great job and even manages to bring some dark humor into the proceedings.

Also first rate, as her housekeeper, is Adriana Barraza, who gives a finely nuanced performance as she evokes sympathy and a sense of genuine caring for her dour employer. Overall, it is predictable and there are some holes in the storyline, but it is Jennifer Aniston that makes it worth a look.

Neil Rosen's Big Apple Rating: Two and a Half Apples

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Common Sense Media Review

Grim but interesting drama has prescription drug abuse.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Cake is a grim drama that deals with incredibly tragic issues, including chronic pain, a fatal car accident, and the suicide of a young mother. As such, it's likely too heavy for young teens and tweens. Expect some swearing, including "s--t" and "f--k," and…

Why Age 17+?

Some swearing, including "s--t," "hell," and "f--k.&quo

A woman is addicted to prescription pills, which she obtains illegally. She'

Frank talk about suicide, with some scenes depicting a person standing on a free

Couples are shown presumably having sex under the covers, but there's no nud

An affluent woman clearly comes across as such because of the things she owns, i

Any Positive Content?

No matter how despondent and isolated someone might feel, there's always a w

Claire starts off as a very angry person, with little hope. But she still has a

Some swearing, including "s--t," "hell," and "f--k."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

A woman is addicted to prescription pills, which she obtains illegally. She's shown popping them constantly. Specific pill brands mentioned include Percocet and Oxycontin.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Frank talk about suicide, with some scenes depicting a person standing on a freeway ledge, about to jump, and lying on railroad tracks. One character kills herself; others are affected by the aftermath. A woman is disturbed by the sight of a man and rushes at him, pushing and kicking. A fatal car accident is discussed. A character suffers from chronic pain.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Couples are shown presumably having sex under the covers, but there's no nudity.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

An affluent woman clearly comes across as such because of the things she owns, including a Jeep and other high-end goods.

Positive Messages

No matter how despondent and isolated someone might feel, there's always a way back to the light.

Positive Role Models

Claire starts off as a very angry person, with little hope. But she still has a modicum of determination and a will to live. And her estranged husband still cares for her, as does her housekeeper, who's her main lifeline.

Parents need to know that Cake is a grim drama that deals with incredibly tragic issues, including chronic pain, a fatal car accident, and the suicide of a young mother. As such, it's likely too heavy for young teens and tweens. Expect some swearing, including "s--t" and "f--k," and many scenes showing star Jennifer Aniston 's character popping pills that she has procured illegally. It's implied that characters are having sex (they're under the covers; there's no nudity) To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

Claire Bennett ( Jennifer Aniston ), a former lawyer, has lost her faith in humanity and in a bright future. Her young son is dead, her marriage in shambles. At group therapy, she discovers that another member, Nina ( Anna Kendrick ), has jumped off a freeway overpass, leaving her own husband and child behind. Stricken with grief, Claire explores Nina's abandoned life, looking for clues to her own salvation.

Is It Any Good?

CAKE won't let you have it and eat it, too. The storyline is interesting, albeit grim, and Aniston and Adriana Barraza -- who plays Claire's housekeeper, Silvana -- are very impressive (this may be Aniston's strongest performance to date, devoid of both makeup and self-consciousness). But the rest of the film is a bit of a jumble, making metaphorical leaps that aren't earned and meandering to the point of losing its way. Claire makes decisions that are ostensibly out of anger -- and later something else -- but how she gets there isn't all that convincing. See it for Aniston and Barraza, but check your expectations first.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about why Claire is so hostile. Are her reasons understandable? Does Cake offer any constructive approaches for dealing with chronic anger?

Why do you think Claire is so dependent on pills? Are there realistic consequences for her substance use? How does the movie explore the reasons why people may abuse pills?

Much has been made of the fact that star Jennifer Aniston made herself "ugly" for her role in this movie. Do you agree with that assessment? Why do you think Hollywood actresses are drawn to play unglamorous characters? Would a male actor doing something similar be singled out the same way?

Why do you think the movie is called Cake ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : January 23, 2015
• On DVD or streaming : April 21, 2015
• Cast : Jennifer Aniston , Anna Kendrick , Sam Worthington
• Director : Daniel Barnz
• Inclusion Information : Queer directors, Female actors
• Studio : Freestyle Releasing
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 91 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language, substance abuse and brief sexuality
• Last updated : July 16, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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What to watch next.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Silver Linings Playbook

Indie films, drama movies that tug at the heartstrings.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

Was Jennifer Aniston Really Snubbed by the Oscars for Cake ?

The Oscars giveth and the Oscars taketh away. A mere ten days ago, you heard pundits talking up Cake, the kind of doleful movie that most of us wouldn’t go see on a bet. But because the lead is played by Jennifer Aniston —whose Golden Globe nomination had spawned a meme about her being a possible Oscar Cinderella—this little indie had picked up some steam. Aniston, word had it, was working the award’s circuit hard. But all that steam dissipated last Thursday morning when Aniston’s name didn’t get called. In a matter of seconds, Cake turned back into a pumpkin.

It’s not hard to see why. The movie’s just an OK portrait of an L.A. woman, Claire, who’s afflicted with terrible chronic pain that has her chomping painkillers, talking to a ghost ( Anna Kendrick ), and basically being snippy to just about everyone—her estranged husband ( Chris Messina ), her support group leader ( Felicity Huffman ), and her saintly housekeeper, Silvana, played here with admirable skill and variation by Adriana Barraza. Like Wild , Cake is all about its heroine learning to get past her inner pain, but unlike ** Reese Witherspoon ’**s Cheryl Strayed, a not very nice woman who hikes, hikes, hikes to reach inner peace (or at least a bestseller), Aniston’s Claire takes a claustrophobic emotional journey that’s at once too neat and too cute. Even at her unseemliest, the film makes it clear that she’s essentially a good person lest we might actually dislike her; although Aniston’s generally good, at moments she looks a tad pleased with her own bravery in letting Claire do something particularly nasty.

Now, one understands why Aniston was drawn to this part, so different from her usual comic characters, and there’s no denying she throws herself into Claire. Not only does she play someone hard to like, she does the thing that’s more daring in actresses than actors: She lets herself look god-awful. If not quite as shocking as Charlize Theron in Monster (the gold standard in deglamorized actresses), Aniston is an unhappy vision of facial scars, rigidly awkward movements, and unkempt hair—all the more unsettling in one who first became famous for her elaborate do, “The Rachel.”

This is the kind of movie star turn—and it is a star turn: Only stars feel the need, and have the oomph, to get such a role on-screen—that all too often gets honored by the Academy, as if getting fat or wearing prosthetics were the sign of a great performance. Indeed, when the Oscar nominations came out, it was suggested that Aniston, whose slot was taken (the narrative went) by Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night, had somehow been snubbed. Even ignoring the fact that Cotillard is a better actress in a better film, such claims were just award season bushwah. The only reason prognosticators talked up Aniston’s Oscar bid in the first place was out of a desperate need for a fresh storyline. Nobody actually expected her to win.

In truth, she’s one of those old-style Hollywood stars who the public enjoys, the industry respects, and the tabloids adore (won’t they ever stop asking her about Brad Pitt ?), yet nobody really thinks about as an actor. This isn’t to say she can’t act. On the contrary, Aniston has crack timing—she’s a tarter Sandra Bullock —and a knack for a slightly depressive decency found in The Good Girl or Marley & Me. Like Bullock, she’s also developed an impressive eye for the material that will let her shine. It’s always been the paradox of her image that even as Friends made her reputation as a hottie—in 2011, Men’s Health declared her The Sexiest Woman of All Time—she still earns enormous sympathy as the “ordinary” woman who lost Brad to that otherworldly vixen, Angelina . Aniston neatly maneuvers between these two poles in her work, easily playing the warm, grown-up woman who wins adolescent **Adam Sandler’**s heart in Just Go with It and the fugitive stripper in We’re the Millers.

Of course, movies like this put her in a different category to perennial award favorites like Meryl Streep , Cate Blanchett , or Julianne Moore , whose films tend to be “classy.” Still, it’s hard to grieve for Aniston any more than one would grieve for Pitt, Tom Cruise, or countless other un-Oscared stars, including the likes of Cary Grant and Barbara Stanwyck (merely the greatest actress in Hollywood history). At 45, an age when most actresses are shunned by the industry, Aniston’s enjoying a career that keeps her famous, makes her a fortune— Forbes says she’s one of Hollywood’s three highest paid actresses—and lets her get uncommercial movies like this one off the ground. Even without a statuette, she’s having her Cake and eating it too.

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, 'cake' stacks layers of crooks.

Now streaming on:

Like Scorsese's " Casino " and " GoodFellas ," the British crime movie "Layer Cake" opens with a narration describing a criminal world made in heaven. Also like "Casino" and "GoodFellas," it is about an inexorable decline toward the torments of hell. The voice explaining everything to us belongs to Daniel Craig , who plays the competent and conservative middle-man in a well-run London cocaine operation. Nobody ever calls him by name during the movie, and in the closing credits, he's referred to as "XXXX," which may be one-upmanship on " XXX ," or probably not.

Craig's credo, spelled out as if he's lecturing at a management seminar, involves knowing your suppliers, knowing your customers, paying your bills and never getting too greedy. His front is real estate. His exit plan is retirement in the near future. All of that changes when he is summoned to a private club for a luncheon meeting with his immediate superior, Jimmy Price ( Kenneth Cranham ), a hard man with cold eyes and a menacing Cockney charm. Jimmy wants him to sort out an ecstasy deal that went bad, and as a sort of twofer, also find the missing daughter of his boss, Eddie Temple ( Michael Gambon ), the kind of man whose soul has warts on its scars.

XXXX does not much like either assignment. They involve cleaning up the kinds of messes he has scrupulously avoided in his own dealings. What's the use of playing it safe if you work for people who want you to take their chances for them? The ecstasy deal is especially dicey: One of Jimmy's cronies named Duke (Jamie Forman), stole ecstasy pills allegedly worth a million pounds. The Serbs he stole them from want them back. Jimmy's ideal scenario, never stated in so many words, would involve XXXX grabbing the pills for Jimmy while Duke is thrown to the Serbs.

XXXX has some hard men who work for him and might be able to get this job done. More complicated is the matter of the girl, especially when another girl named Tammy ( Sienna Miller ) enters the picture. There are key supporting roles for such actors as the indespensible Colm Meaney , who looks as if he should be found guilty and sent down for life just for the way he has of listening to you.

The movie was directed by Matthew Vaughn , who produced " Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels " and " Snatch ," and this one works better than those films because it doesn't try so hard to be clever and tries harder to be menacing. It's difficult to take danger seriously when it's packaged in fancy camera work, although Guy Ritchie's "Lock, Stock" did have a carefree visual genius. "Layer Cake" is more in the Scorsese vein, in which a smart and ambitious young man has it all figured out and then gradually loses control to old-fashioned hoods who don't have the patience for prudence when it's easier to just eliminate anyone who gets in their way. The problem is that every dead enemy tends to have a more dangerous living enemy standing next in line.

There is a kind of scene that both American and British crime movies do very well, in which low-lifes enjoy high life. They've had success in their business of crime, but their preparation for life has not equipped them with interesting ways to stay amused. They almost always lack imagination about what constitutes fun, and dutifully spend their money on cars, cigars, women, champagne and memberships in private clubs, none of which finally seem to be worth the trouble. We are reminded of the last days of Scarface, a young man who desperately needed something constructive to do with his spare time.

XXXX's dilemma is that he has the resources to enjoy himself, but works for people who speak a different language. He is really in the wrong line of work. He could steal more money with the kinds of high finance that distinguished Enron, and run a smaller risk of finding his head in a bucket of ice and his body elsewhere. As his life begins to heat up and events unfold more quickly than he can follow them, we're reminded of Ray Liotta in "GoodFellas," whose life spins out of control.

Daniel Craig was said to be the front-runner for the next James Bond, until it began to be said that Pierce Brosnan might return for a farewell lap. My own money is on Clive Owen , but who would wish James Bond on anyone? Craig is fascinating here as a criminal who is very smart, and finds that is not an advantage because while you might be able to figure out what another smart person is about to do, dumbos like the men he works for are likely to do anything.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Layer Cake (2005)

Rated R for strong brutal violence, sexuality, nudity, pervasive language and drug use

100 minutes

Daniel Craig as XXXX

Colm Meaney as Gene

Kenneth Cranham as Jimmy Price

George Harris as Morty

Jamie Foreman as Duke

Michael Gambon as Eddie Temple

Tamer Hassan as Terry

Ben Whishaw as Sidney

Burn Gorman as Gazza

Sally Hawkins as Slasher

Sienna Miller as Tammy

Directed by

• Matthew Vaughn
• J.J. Connolly

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Cake Review

By Rich Cline

Jennifer Aniston delivers an Oscar-calibre performance in this rather over-worked drama, which tries to emphasise heavy-handed metaphors more than the characters themselves. But it's an involving personal odyssey thanks to Aniston's honest acting, and Daniel Barnz's sensitive direction manages to dodge most of the script's more glaring pitfalls.

Aniston plays Claire, a woman who has been in continual pain, both emotional and physical, following the car accident that claimed the life of her young son. Revelling in her bitter sarcasm, she has alienated her husband ( Chris Messina ), driven her physiotherapist ( Mamie Gummer ) to despair and so enraged her therapy leader ( Felicity Huffman ) that she's been thrown out of the group. The only person who patiently sticks by her side is her maid/assistant Silvana (Adriana Barazza), and she's beginning to waver. Then Nina ( Anna Kendrick ), a therapy-group member, commits suicide, making Claire question why she's still bothering to be alive. There has to be a spark of hope there, and she decides to stalk Nina's single-dad widower Roy ( Sam Worthington ) for answers.

While the premise seems to set up the usual story about two damaged souls healing each other, the story thankfully doesn't go down that tired route. Instead, Patrick Tobin's script keeps the interaction prickly and unexpected, even as it layers in so much symbolism that it becomes rather exhausting. Claire's physical scarring is clearly indicative of something deeper, as is her array of cruel defence mechanisms. Thankfully, Aniston plays these scenes with a mixture of black comedy and aching sadness that makes the character thoroughly involving and only slightly likeable. Her interaction with Barraza is the heart of the film, beautifully played because their connection remains mainly unspoken. By contrast, Worthington feels almost superfluous; he sharply matches Aniston's cynicism, but is too nice to register very strongly.

Even less effective are the dream/fantasy sequences involving Kendrick, which feel pushy and far too obvious. Kendrick plays these moments cleverly, but since she's just an idea of a character, everything she says has already been stated more subtly in other scenes. Through all of this, Barnz does his best to diffuse the script's pushier elements (the eponymous cake scenes are mercifully elusive). He also refreshingly refuses to fill in every corner of the script, leaving tantalizing trails for us to follow in our own minds, which draws us into the film and makes its themes more resonant. So in the end, Claire's journey may actually give hope to people who feel like their lives have been torn away from them by one fateful moment.

Cake Trailer

Facts and figures.

Year : 2014

Genre : Dramas

Run time : 102 mins

In Theaters : Friday 23rd January 2015

Distributed by : Cinelou Films

Production compaines : We're Not Brothers Productions, Cinelou Films, Echo Films

Contactmusic.com : 3.5 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes : 49% Fresh: 44 Rotten: 45

IMDB : 6.5 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director : Daniel Barnz

Producer : Ben Barnz , Mark Canton , Kristin Hahn , Courtney Solomon

Screenwriter : Patrick Tobin

Starring : Jennifer Aniston as Claire Simmons, Anna Kendrick as Nina, William H. Macy as Leonard, Adriana Barraza as Silvana, Felicity Huffman as Annette, Sam Worthington as Roy, Britt Robertson as Becky, Lucy Punch as Nurse Gayle, Chris Messina as Jason, Mamie Gummer as Bonnie, Camille Guaty as Tina, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Arturo, Misty Upham as Liz, Rose Abdoo as Innocencia

Also starring : William H Macy , Mark Canton , Kristin Hahn , Courtney Solomon

• Cake Movie Site

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Cake Movie Review

So, I just watched Cake (Torrent) and i am here to review it since some people might want to know what the movie is about.

Cake by far is probably the best Pakistani movie in recent memory. It has a typical Indie movie feel to it and even though sometimes it slightly feels derivative, through the long run, stellar performances from the ensemble cast make sure that you don't notice. The whole movie has a sort of story arc that has the feel of a hollywood written story with maturity that we don't see in subcontinental movies and that's because it is a realist's movie. Dealing with themes of death, love, feelings of expats towards their hometown and the feelings we attach to certain things or certain memories. The movie is paced very appropriately with sufficient character exploration to the extent that we are able to create a mind map of the characters, giving them a very human feel. The whole movie is shot like it is the longest instagram post ever, with some shots looking like they are straight from some big photographer's instagram. What I mean by that is that the movie is very much aesthetically aware of what is wants to portray with the excellent soundtrack only magnifying that effect. The one thing that is possibly is my favorite part of the movie is the way it beautifully describes the village, causing the evolution of nostalgic feeling in one from the time of one's own experience in a village, the sort of vague memories that we caress fondly just because it reminds us of something that has a benevolent feeling in our minds that we just can't explain; not because we don't want to but because there's some beauty in it being tucked away in the crevices of our brain ready to comfort us.

What did you think about the movie?

(Review my review as well)

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Movie review: ‘cake’ is a believable drama film executed to perfection.

The family drama film Cake premiered in Pakistan yesterday and it was one delicious treat, I must say. Starring Aamina Sheikh, Sanam Saeed and Adnan Malik in the lead roles, Cake is a film about a dysfunctional family that unites under grave circumstances. Directed by Asim Abbasi, the movie is multidimensional in its approach to bringing a rejuvenating experience to the viewers. It was really a dream come true to capture the long-dead essence of Pakistani cinema with this film. Cake was put together phenomenally; the acting was stellar especially of Aamina Sheikh who stood out. Her command on acting is brilliant and she manages to execute her roles brilliantly in almost every project. But her performance was one of a kind in this film alone.

Sheikh amalgamated Zarine’s character really well and made it look believable on screen. Although the character has her occasional mood swings and outbursts but that is what makes her personality special. Without a doubt, Cake is what an ideal Pakistani film should be; less theatrics and thorough consistency in view of direction, visuals and acting. In my opinion, Cake is probably the first mainstream Pakistani film that has not compromised on content and quality unlike many haphazard movies created in the recent past. It has a fixed identity and a progressive storyline which are essential components in every film.

It is mostly impulsive scriptwriting and poor direction that have done Pakistan’s cinema more harm than good. Perhaps filmmakers should take their time in making a movie to achieve an intense impact. Director Asim Abbasi has created a masterpiece that almost every educated Pakistani can relate to but more importantly, reminisce in the long run; what corroborates the success of a film are memories that people take with them and Cake manages to achieve that feat. For those who do not know, Asim Abbasi is also the recipient of Best Director for Cake at the recent UK Asian Film Festival. The accolade is an evidence of hard work and commitment.

What I would say to an average Pakistani is, book your seats and watch Cake while you can. It is perhaps the only Pakistani film I have come across that is not stereotypical. As far as the movie goes, I will not spoil the plot for the readers and moviegoers because I want them to experience the drive of the film, and enjoy it as they would a delicious, multi-layered cake! Most mainstream films are known for their box office earnings but movies that really matter are recognized for their content and brilliance. I commend the filmmaker and actors for investing in this film and making it a rare cinematic experience.

Rating 4.5/5

Model, actor and writer hailing from the United States, Haider Rifaat is a columnist for Daily Times and Pakistan Today newspapers. He also writes for the fashion magazine HELLO! Pakistan

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Haider Rifaat

Zainab: a bud which perished before transforming into flower, why malala is hated, you might also like more from author, battle of narratives compounding gazans’ woes, five best tv shows to binge watch right now, pakistan’s television industry needs to up its game.

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