sinisterporpoise

 I went out to see Cake last night. I am unaware of how I became aware of this film.  I probably came across it due to my obsessive nature.  In the past few months, I've read a great deal about fibromyalgia and chronic pain.  I did not expect to come away from the film with the same feeling I got from watching The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies or Guardians of the Galaxy.  I expected the film to be a painful and sometimes funny portrayal of someone dealing with chronic pain.  It is indeed that, but the movie suffered from a few flaws that made it less enjoyable.

The movie did contain some realistic elements. It is also one of the few films where the main character wears little to no makeup.  (The use of some make up to show the scars she has is assumed.) The viewer sees Claire, Jennifer Anniston's character putting her hands along the walls  to support the pain in her leg.  At one point in the film, viewers see the title character lying in bed moaning in pain, unable to go to sleep until she takes multiple narcotic painkillers.

Starting with a suicide is a good, if somewhat cliched way to start any dark comedy.  As group members are asked to share their feelings, Claire is the only one who congratulates the deceased member for having the guts to do what none of the rest of them could. When she returns home, she is kicked out of the group.

Later that night, she has a vision of the deceased woman.  The visions leader her through a series of increasingly severe suicide attempts.

From a structural standpoint, the movie did not keep a consistent tone. Its as if the writers wanted to avoid taking them where the plot was leading them.  While it is understandable that dark comedy writers may not want a sad ending, it makes the work weaker artistically.  A sudden epiphany leading the character to a moment of redemption does not make sense. It does not even make sense in Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which is a far superior redemption tale.  (Although I wanted someone to kill the title character about 50 pages into the first book and kept wanting someone to do so until the final pages of the first trilogy.)

Cake also touches on prescription drug and alcohol abuse, although it never says the character is addicted to the Percocets she seems to swallow like candy.  Now, not everyone who has chronic pain becomes addicted to these painkillers. Some people avoid them entirely, but the main character's painkiller and alcohol abuse are used to suggest that she's not dealing with her real problems.  Several cliches exist here, as well, including drug-seeking behavior.  In order for the story to make sense, the viewer must believe that she uses drugs and alcohol to avoid her psychological problems. Nowhere is the suggestion that the pain may continue even if she does everything her doctor tells her to do.  Some people may come away with the film with the impression that all long-term prescription painkiller usage invariably leads to addiction. Many patients try to avoid addiction and will fully explore other relief options.

What did Cake get right?  The main character is often shown in a disheveled state wearing a loose-fitting sweater and what appears to be a sports bra.  If we accept that she suffers from depression as well, the lack of attention to hygiene is understandable.  If the pain goes through her entire body, her wardrobe is also understandable.  

Throughout the course of the movie, we learn that she has driven multiple people out of her life, with the exception of her housekeeper.  If the story explains what caused her condition early in the movie, I missed it. At the end, you do finally learned what happened to her, and an additional information as to what Claire to her depressed state.

Cake was not a great movie. It had some realistic moments, but it also suffered from structural flaws that can be avoided by giving an unhappy story a happy ending. Redemption tales are better IF you drop hints throughout the story that the character is trying to change his or her situation.