Jennifer
Aniston gives an excellent performance as a woman suffering both
physical and mental pain. The hair is stringy, the face scarred, the
body constantly in pain as she seeks relief with Percocet and alcohol.
Her husband, Chris Messina, has left to fight his own demons, she has
been thrown out of a support group and aside from a loveless interlude
now and then with her gardener, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, her main
companionship is with her housekeeper Adriana Barraza, who equals
Aniston’s performance. The two women represent the imbalance white women
and their Mexican help have, particularly in Southern California,
though it is only followed through in one quick scene.

“Cake”
contains not only fine performances by Aniston and Bazzaza but also from
Felicity Huffman, as a support group leader, along with a cameo by
William H. Macy that is too short to have the impact it should plus Sam
Worthington as a husband who recently lost a wife, Anna Kendrick, to
suicide as she couldn’t deal with the constant pain, with a young boy to
raise.

The sad thing about “Cake” is that the screenplay by
Patrick Tobin, and the director Daniel Barnz, doesn’t even come close to
what the actors give them to work with. They play it safe and go with
the story of why Aniston is in such pain with a bunch of clichés that
are telegraphed way before it has any impact.

“Cake” is, what was
called in the 1940s, a 4 hankie picture and would have been a star
vehicle with say Bette Davis and though Jennifer Aniston equals a
performance of that stature unfortunately the screenplay  and direction
lets them down and we get a 1 hankie picture instead.