Jennifer Aniston’s surprisingly long and crowded career,
which really began with the successful television show “Friends,” includes a
variety of roles in some occasionally unusual movies. Although she has mostly
starred in chick flicks and romantic comedies (probably a result of typecasting
created by the TV series), she has also played a few unusual parts, notably the
vicious, glamorous seducer in “Derailed” and the frustrated young wife
smothered by drab reality in the crummy little town of “The Good Girl.” In her
latest picture, she takes on a role that differs quite drastically from her
previous work, inspiring a loud buzz among the swarms of entertainment
reporters and film reviewers.
In the new
movie, the unfortunately titled “Cake” (the baked item takes on symbolic
meanings late in the story), she plays Claire Bennett, a woman suffering an
enormous burden of physical and emotional pain, the cause of which gradually
emerges as the film progresses.ย “Cake”
opens gradually, with the barely heard voices of women talking as the initial
credits roll, then shows the women seated in a circle, not a book club or a
sewing circle, but that familiar gathering of our time, a support group, led by
Annette (Felicity Huffman), an oleaginous therapist spouting the usual
psychobabble.
Their
discussion involves the suicide of one of their members, Nina (Anna Kendrick),
an event that naturally devastates them all. Claire, however, recounts the
bizarre circumstances of Nina’s death and the long, strange journey of her body
to Acapulco and back to the United States, concluding, “Way to go, Nina!” Not
surprisingly, Annette calls Claire later and expels her from the group for her
hostility and negativity.ย
Having
driven her husband away and assisted only by her kind housekeeper Silvana (Adriana Barraza). Claire blunders through the
movie, drinking, popping pills like Rush Limbaugh, and sleeping with her
gardener. Throughout her progress the causes of her condition slowly reveal
themselves — her scarred face, her stumbling walk, the pain in her legs all
result from an automobile accident; worse, she lost her young son in the same
accident. She dwells in a state of drugged passivity, interrupted by nightmares
and hallucinations.ย
Those hallucinations, in which the
dead Nina appears and converses with her about her condition and the methods
she uses to deal with it, provide the only real insight into the interior of
Claire’s mind. Nina berates her for sleeping with Nina’s husband Roy (Sam
Worthington), himself consumed by the same anger that burns in Claire. Nina
also constantly invites Claire to commit suicide and end all the pain, a
possibility that Claire keeps approaching but never quite accepts.
Apparently
having gained weight for the part, Jennifer Aniston looks almost aggressively
plain. She covers her newly dumpy body in plain, nondescript outfits, wears no
makeup, keeps her hair stringy and unkempt, and maintains an impassive,
virtually affectless demeanor in almost every scene, except for a single
violent moment that in effect explains everything about her.
Her choice
of the role of a badly damaged person without any attempt at softening the
character or enhancing her appearance is the sort of thing that wows the usual
crowd of corrupt incompetents who hand out the innumerable cinema awards.ย No wonder the lap dogs of the entertainment
media express surprise and disappointment that she was not included in the Oscar
nominations. Playing a deliberately unattractive and disabled person usually
guarantees praise from the various voters’ warm little hearts. Appearing in
almost every scene, she certainly performs competently, but her part remains so
insistently on one level of emotion and reaction that even her pain grows
tiresome.
As for the
movie itself, it also suffers from the virtually monotone level of emotion and
action, so that it often looks as if the director were simply filming the same
people, the same events, the same outcomes, over and over again, with minute
and generally predictable variations. Although most film critics confront a
really extraordinary range of subjects, themes, and circumstances — and I have
probably seen them all — on a personal level, I must confess that I have great
difficulties dealing with movies that revolve around the death of a child,
which prejudices me to some degree against “Cake.”
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2015.
