Cake (2014)

Film: Cake (2014)
Stars: Jennifer Aniston, Adriana Barraza, Anna Kendrick, Sam Worthington, Mamie Gummer, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy
Director: Daniel Barnz
Oscar History: Aniston certainly made a major splash at most of awards shows (BFCA, SAG, and the Globes), but was that random person who couldn't make it with Oscar (though was clearly sixth place)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

The Academy Awards can occasionally be deeply cruel to a movie.  That nomination morning, you might end up being a film like The Grand Budapest Hotel, overwhelmed with nine nominations, many of which you hardly expected and suddenly people will see your film (indefinitely) as a major motion picture.  Then there are films like Selma or The Dark Knight, a film that still manages to be part of the conversation, even if it isn't in all of the categories you expect.  And finally there is a movie like Cake, a film that had all of its hopes pinned on that one person making the list, and then suddenly they land in sixth or seventh place and the film becomes suddenly colored in a poor light.  "Not good enough for a nomination" despite its inclusion in other major critics awards and the Globes, it becomes a film that has a quick theater life and likely becomes the sort of movie that's on one of the subsidiary Showtime channels and that's about it.  Which is a pity, because on occasion those films and the nomination they were gunning for are totally worth the price of admission, which is the case with Cake, which houses a superb piece of work by Jennifer Aniston that I would have nominated even if Oscar wouldn't have.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Claire Bennett (Aniston) a woman who has clearly given up on happiness in the wake of a car accident that killed her son and caused her to have chronic pain.  She's left her husband, and her only companions are her saintly maid (Barraza) and her support group, who is reeling from the death of the seemingly perfect Nina (Kendrick).  The film unfolds with Claire trying to find her purpose in life, first tracking down Nina's footsteps trying to decide why she killed herself (and if this is something Claire needs to consider) and what happens to you once everything in your life has been ripped away from you.

It's a heavy subject, but the film handles it pretty lightly, as you would expect from a movie named after a pastry.  The movie's plot notes are totally predictable-there is no point in the film that comes across as surprising.  We all know that Claire will continue down her trek toward self-destruction until it's clear that she's got something new to live toward (potentially returning to her husband or her new friend/theoretical love interest in Worthington), but the film doesn't cover new ground or even start a new conversation.  It's this reason, quite frankly, that I think that the critics were on the nose with the relative panning that this particular movie received.

Except, of course, for that central performance.  Jennifer Aniston has been dramatic before, most notably in The Good Girl (which is an AWFUL movie and a middling performance at best), but here she's completely on-point.  Aniston's Claire is sarcastic, a narcissist, and a pain-in-the-ass, but she knows it and she knows what her charms are.  She continues to be funny, and all of Aniston's greatest attributes as a movie star (save for her sun-kissed beauty) are on full-display here.  The razor sharp timing we saw in Rachel Green all those years keeps the film light and watachable, and that's the key in a familiar movie: how do you say something new with the same old formula?  You do that with a wonderful central performance that shows how idiotically comedy casting directors have been behaving by casting Aniston in dreck (admittedly, this also probably falls on the feet of the star and her agent as well, but as we learned with Michael Keaton and Channing Tatum earlier this year, casting directors are amply rewarded when they get creative).

Overall, then, while this is no one's idea of a great movie, it does house a great performance, which is a pity that it faltered in what is a very solid Best Actress field (though I'd quickly drop Felicity Jones in favor of Jennifer Aniston, even though pundits insist I lose Marion Cotillard instead), and if you're a fan of Aniston this is a movie that you should check out.  At least those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Do you wish that Aniston had made the Best Actress race as well?  And if so, whom would you cut?  Share your thoughts in the comments!