Andrew McMurtryREVIEW: The Cake Eaters (2007)
September 15th 2009 04:34
“The Cake Eaters” is a small independent film set in rural upstate New York. The directorial debut of “Fried Green Tomatoes” star Mary Stuart Masterton, is about relationships. Relationships such as the one between the parents and children as well as two families intertwined by circumstance. The twist in this story is in Georgia (Kristen Stewart), who is suffering from Friedreich’s Ataxia, which is a disease attacking her central nervous system and causing her heart damage. Along with that, it makes her shakes uncontrollably, slur her speech and she is living an uncomfortable life. She knows she doesn’t have much time to live and, before she goes, wants to have the quintessential human experience of sex.
The story begins when Georgia’s grandmother Marg (Elizabeth Ashley), takes Georgia to her stall at the local bazaar. It is here she meets ‘Beagle’ (Aaron Stanford) and strikes up a conversation with him. She decides he is the guy. What no one else in the story know is that Marg and Beagle’s father, Easy (Bruce Dern), who is the town’s local butcher who is still grieving his wife’s death, are having an affair. Easy is the town’s local butcher who is still grieving his wife’s death. As the story moves on, Easy’s other son Guy (Jayce Bartok), who disappeared to become a musician, finally comes back home for the first time since his mothers death. His story looks at dealing with her death, which, up until now, he had been avoiding. Beagle, a lunch room attendant at Georgia’s school, starts spending time with Georgia. As Georgia tries to lose her virginity before she dies, her overprotective, slightly exploitive mother Violet (Talia Balsam) stands in the way. She doesn’t trust Beagle but Georgia is headstrong and does what she wants.
This film benefits from the great acting performances from the whole cast. Kristen Stewart shows how good she is following through with all the attributes of a girl who is dealing with a degenerative neurological disease. Her thinness and frailty and even the look on her face gives the feeling of a very sick person. If I didn’t know who she was or had seen her in anything else, I would’ve thought she was a sick girl. Everyone else is good without being outstanding but that is what they were supposed to do. Stewart is the star while everyone else had to support her. Beagle is the right character for a relationship with Georgia and is played well by Aaron Stanford. His withdrawn introspective performance hits to the essence of the character.
Where this movie struggles is the plot. In short, it is the story of a sick girl wanting to lose her virginity. It’s fairly bland and seems to follow the old story line in movies like ‘A Walk to Remember’. And shoved into 94 minutes, it seems like Georgia and Beagle’s relationship is a tad rushed, although the shortness of the film is refreshing. The only thing that separates this movie from those before it is the level of acting, which is very good. Another let down was the ending. The movie is set over three days and at the end of the third, the movie just stops. It’s a strange way to end the movie as nothing is really resolved. There is no conclusion. It leaves quite a lot up in the air and some relationships strained or on the verge of straining. Despite this it is a very watchable movie.
“The Cake Eaters” is a good debut movie for Mary Stuart Masterton. It looks great and she really drew the best out of all her actors. With so much domestic unrest, “The Cake Eaters” looks at all the subplots well. And if you don’t analyse it too hard, it has quite a good message. Everyone has their problems to work out. It can be as complex as a relationship or saying goodbye to a person you don’t want to say goodbye to or as simple as just wanting to feel normal like everyone else. I’d give this film 3.5 out of 5, although it is a very watchable movie and its short length is also a plus.
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