Review: 'Cake' starring Jennifer Aniston, Anna Kendrick, and Sam Worthington

Oh quiet down, Team Jennifer fans: your favorite Friends star wasn't snubbed by the Oscars for her grief-stricken performance in Cake. That's not to say she isn't deserving of some measure of kudos for taking on a role much darker than we've seen since she was briefly an indie darling for The Good Girl. Aniston does deserve credit for that, but the film itself is an inelegant look at misery and depression that holds her back from reaching real emotional depths.

The oddly-titled Cake is just as odd of a nut to crack. At times it's so bleak and humorless that to watch it can be a real drag, but then the next moment it resembles a snarkier version of Spanglish, which is about as lame as that sounds. Aniston takes a break from the lame rom-coms and gives an intermittently powerful performance as Claire Simmons, a woman scarred in just about every way imaginable. Both physically and emotionally she is a damaged woman, who hides her pain by the constant taking of prescription pills and a "who gives a crap" attitude about everything. That includes her treatment of loyal housekeeper Silvana (Adrianna Barrazza), who functions as a sort of cheerful enabler to Claire's negativity. Claire is so terrible she's lost just about everyone: her husband (Chris Messina) has long since moved on; her support group wants her to seek help elsewhere; and even her physical therapist (Mamie Gummer) thinks she's given up.

While the story of an extreme depressive's turn towards redemption can be a powerful one if told with an honest accounting of struggles involved, Cake takes an unnecessarily quirky route and never quite recovers. After nearly killing herself on drugs, Claire begins to see visions of and have combative conversations with Nina (Anna Kendrick), a former member of her self-help group who committed suicide. Nina becomes obsessed with Nina's life, visiting her former home and encountering her widowed husband Roy (Sam Worthington), who seems remarkably open to being stalked by an unstable woman. He doesn't seem to mind that she keeps showing up out of the blue, and Claire doesn't mind using him to make herself feel better. She doesn't mind using anybody, for that matter. Claire is a user, first and foremost.

Claire is also not especially likable. She's not nearly as funny as the screenplay wants her to be, and every attempt to make her so comes across as mean-spirited and selfish. There isn't enough consistency in her character to make us pity her, and it's a complete disservice to Aniston who dives into Claire's grief with both feet. We've never seen her play a character this unhappy, this sour, this defeated by life, and it's startling given the sexy comedic roles she's had of late. While it doesn't rank with some of the more challenging female performances that did get Oscar nominations, Aniston has set herself up for greater dramatic roles in the future. With the warm, comforting Barrazza they make for an interesting oil & water duo to watch when not tripped up by shapeless screenplay. Unfortunately, Cake is an unsatisfying meal too unsure tonally and lacking in any serious revelations on breaking free of despair.

 Rating: 2.5 out of 5

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Middleburg Review: Tommy Lee Jones' 'The Homesman' starring Hilary Swank

When Tommy Lee Jones made his directorial debut nearly a decade ago it was with the pseudo-Western, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, a contemporary film tinged with just enough dust and tumbleweeds to qualify for the genre. It was also an immensely successful project, at least from a creative standpoint, but Jones has mostly stayed in front of the camera since, perhaps finding it difficult to rustle up the money for another Western feature. Whatever the reasons were for the hiatus, Jones returns with the old school oater The Homesman, a bizarre "deconstruction" about the grim reality for women in the Old West, or at least that's what the film appears to be about...it's too wildly out of balance to know what the heck was going on in Edwards' head.

Former Oscars staple Hilary Swank fits capably into the role of stiff and stern pioneer woman Mary Bee Cuddy, described frequently as "plain as an old tin pail". Tough independent women don't exactly make good marrying material in the Nebraska frontier, and poor Cuddy has been alone her entire life, practically begging men to marry her and finding no takers. Her loneliness has one terrible upside, though; she doesn't turn out batshit crazy like many of the married women forced to deal with sexually abusive husbands or the incredibly high death rate for children. Three such women (Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter) have gone loopy and since none of the men are willing to do it, poor single Cuddy volunteers to transport them to a psychiatric facility in Iowa. It's a dangerous weeks-long journey by wagon, so it's a good thing she happens upon goofy claim jumper George Briggs, rescuing him from a sure hanging for his past crimes.

Briggs is both the best and worst thing about the film. He might as well be a cartoon character; rootin' and tootin' and dancin' with his finger pistols up in the air like Yosemite Sam. He's absolutely ridiculous and lord knows the film needs what little humor he provides, but at the same time we're meant to take him and this deadly journey seriously. Jones seems unsure of the tone he's aiming for and it lurches wildly from comedy to bleak melodrama with images of dead babies, rotting cattle, and women wailing in despair. The deranged female cargo, all played by spectacularly talented actresses, don't get much to do but stare blankly so there's no real reason to tell them apart. The relationship between the plainspoken Cuddy and Grimes resembles the central pair in True Grit, and there's even a brief cameo by Hailee Steinfeld who had her breakout role in the Coen Brothers' remake.

If this was meant to be an exercise in female empowerment The Homesman chooses an odd way to go about it. Cuddy's personal strength is her greatest asset but it's frequently played up for strangely-timed laughs, just as her desperation for a man is. The journey, which has them encountering angry Native Americans, a rapist nutjob (Tim Blake Nelson), starvation, and desolate surroundings begins to put her mettle to the test, and to say Cuddy's story is a somber one would be an understatement. The screenplay by Jones and a pair of co-writers are intent on making her tale as sad as possible, and the turn it takes comes out of nowhere, presumably so the focus can shift even further to Briggs. Just as nonsensical is the change in his character from clownish rogue to avenging angel to unlikely father figure; it only serves to take the attention away from the plight of women, casting them fully into the background. Jones is clearly comfortable in the genre, though, taking his old school cinematic cues from the likes of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. But The Homesman is a complete mess from start to finish. It's both too dark and too silly, and is unlikely to satisfy fans of contemporary or classic Westerns. 

 Rating: 2 out of 5

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Kevin Costner is 'Criminal'; Jessica Barth Returns for 'Ted 2'; Mamie Gummer Joins 'Ricki and the Flash'

* Kevin Costner is suddenly busier than ever although that says nothing about the results of all these movies he's starring in lately. Draft Day, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and the wretched Three Days to Kill have all done poorly, but maybe that will change with Costner's next project. He's in talks to star in Criminal, from The Iceman director Ariel Vromen. Costner will play “a ruthless killer who, rather than spend the rest of his life in jail, chooses to be used in a medical experiment in which the brain of a recently murdered field operative is implanted in his head.” Pretty nifty concept that Vromen can hopefully bring to life better than he did with The Iceman. [Variety]

* The chick who fell in love with a talking Teddy bear will be back for Ted 2 as Jessica Barth will reprise her role as trashy cashier, Tami-Lynn. Plot details are few but we know Seth MacFarlane will be back to voice Ted, co-write the script, and direct. Mark Wahlberg is also returning, joined by new addition Amanda Seyfried who will play his new love interest with Mila Kunis taking only a small role this time.

* Mamie Gummer, along with Kevin Kline, will join her mother Meryl Streep in Ricki and the Flash. Directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Diablo Cody, Streep plays "a rock ‘n’ roll-loving woman who chased her dreams at the cost of her family, but gets a chance to put things right." Kline will play Streep's ex-husband while Gummer is their confrontational daughter. [TheWrap]

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