What good timing by our Cinema Society! Jennifer Aniston snagged both SAG and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress this week and today was our screening with Aniston in attendance for the Q&A afterwards. Now that I’ve seen the film and her performance, I can say unequivocally that her recognition is well deserved. She’s superb and will likely get an Oscar nom as well.
She plays Claire, a woman in LA who’s visibly scarred and in both physical and emotional pain. (She was in a terrible car accident.) She pops Percocet and Oxycontin like candy, gets kicked out of her support group for her bitchy behavior, has pushed away her husband and alienates just about everybody except her caregiver, Silvana, an immigrant from Mexico. She thinks about killing herself constantly and even gives suicide a couple of tries. Needless to say, this isn’t an easy movie to watch and it’s a huge departure for the normally comic Aniston.
How she fights her way back to the land of the living and functioning, how she copes with the losses she’s suffered, how she kicks her addiction are all answered in satisfying storytelling. Actually, the storytelling in itself is a great story. At the Q&A, we learned that the script came from a 49-year-old man who had entered it in a screenwriting contest. The director read it, loved it, and the rest is history.
I have nothing but praise for “Cake” – not a single critique. It was well made on every level and I applaud Aniston for taking a leap and going out of her comfort zone. She was charming at the Q&A too, very chatty with the audience and appreciative that we’d packed the theater on a Sunday morning.
Go see this movie when it comes out. You will be moved.
I can’t wait to see this movie!
But if I have to hear how brave she was for not wearing makeup and looking like she was in pain and frumpy I will scream! We need a new definition of brave for pete’s sake.
I am so glad to hear Jane that you say she is good, her performance was good. You never mentioned she was good because she took off her makeup and didn’t exercise for a few month. Those are the only things I have been hearing about the movie from critics. So I thank you. And I will most certainly see this one.
Hi, Peg. Just now saw your comment, so I’m sorry I didn’t reply sooner. I don’t want to oversell the movie. It’s a small indie film and it’s not the best of the year by any means. But it does a great job of mixing the heavy stuff with some lighthearted moments, and Aniston is good. I’m laughing about the whole “she didn’t wear makeup or wash her hair” fuss. I do think actresses of comedy can’t be taken seriously unless they play against type though, so she was smart to find the material and star in the movie. Let me know what you think when you see it.