Cake (2014)

Nicole Fox35 said:glad you liked the movie as much as I did... honestly what you said about how J. Aniston brought her signature humor into that depressing character was spot on
gave the whole thing a little light at the end of the tunnel 🙂

SPOILER

my take was that he was driving and she was in the passenger seat, they hit the kid and she flew right through the windshield
that’s where all those facial scars come from... from the shattered glass when she went through
and just like you said, I think that’s why she can't face life head-on anymore... because looking through that front windshield is just too painful

yeah, I read the cake thing the exact same way
I looked it up on IMDb and the metaphor for the cake in English is "you can't have your cake and eat it too" (basically saying you can't have two conflicting things at once)
meaning even though her son is gone, she can fill that void with someone else... so she decides to give the cake to the little guy, and even if she can't bake it herself, she finds someone who will do it for her 🙂

spoiler

I seriously cannot get behind or agree with that theory for a dozen different reasons.

She’s disabled. We're talking serious spinal cord damage and a massive amount of scarring all over her body that wouldn't just happen from hitting a toddler with a car. Those are heavy-duty injuries... we're talking impact forces equivalent to a massive wreck where her car gets flipped onto its roof or slams into a tree or a utility pole

And on top of that, her kid died in the crash. What are the odds she actually ran over her own kid?

Based on how the movie subtly builds her character before the accident, she was clearly a high-flyer—graduated from a top-tier law school, married to a successful attorney, totally knows her way around the legal system. So, the idea that she flew through the windshield just because she wasn't wearing a seatbelt? Yeah, no way

Lastly, her encounter with the person who caused the accident tells you everything. Her housekeeper doesn't even know him. He shows up because he needs to clear his conscience; he can't live with the guilt of being responsible for a child's death. It's heavily implied they met during a court case, and he even mentions telling his lawyers he’d trade places with her and her son in a heartbeat

I don't think her husband would even be standing by her side if he thought she had any part in their kid's death. She pushed him away—he didn't leave her. He tried to help, but she wouldn't let him. Silvana implies at one point that he lost a child too, so she shouldn't be so hard on him

To me, it's pretty straightforward: there was a collision where J. Aniston and her son got the short end of the stick. The son died, and she ended up disabled

Love the cake metaphor though 👍

spoiler those theories are pretty solid—like the idea that there's a slim chance she actually ran over her own son.
but how does that even work though? so you're saying all three were in a car wreck on the exact same day, yet she somehow wasn't in the vehicle when the kid got hit? what are the odds of that actually happening? 🤔

Spoiler

I mean, I’m thinking she was actually inside the car with her son when that guy slammed into them in his own vehicle. He just breezed right through without even flinching—maybe he had a beefier engine or something—while they ended up completely totaled... probably from the impact hitting the roof or spinning straight into a ditch or something...

That’s how it went down. It makes sense 🙏
Thanks—my imagination just totally ran away with me there.
The movie was incredible, honestly... I think I might have to give it another watch 👍

The movie holds a 6.5 on IMDb. Honestly, that feels a bit low—not terrible, sure, but definitely underwhelming given how truly great this film actually is. I won’t even get into the performance by J. Aniston, though I thought she was absolutely wonderful. What really strikes me as the core of this story—something I noticed none of you mentioned, and frankly, most critics have overlooked too—is the role of her housekeeper. In my eyes, she is the absolute linchpin of the entire plot; she’s the one who essentially keeps the lead actress from spiraling into total despair. It just goes to show that every once in a while, we encounter those people in life who stay by our side through thick and thin. They are our quiet guardians, the ones who look out for us because they're driven by something much deeper than the self-serving, calculated interests that seem to run everything these days.

Jennifer was truly stellar, though I found the film itself to be rather mediocre.

The full review can be found here:
http://film-na-dan.blogspot.com/2015/02/cake.html

The movie is honestly great, but man, it’s a lot to wrap your head around—the psychological stuff gets pretty heavy.

It’s nothing that hasn't already surfaced deep within the rabbit hole...

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@ Jamie Turner80
I don't really buy that this is just some Oscar bait—not how you described it in your blog, anyway.
Plus, he didn't even land a nomination, so much for that theory of yours.

And about that part where you claim they were trying to push her toward being "disabled" for the sake of an award...
I think it’s actually deeper than that. It’s more about showing that even if physical pain looks like it's destroying someone—which is what the audience sees first—she can actually be way tougher on the inside.

Just because he didn't pull it off doesn't mean there wasn't a calculated plan behind it. I saw the math being done in real-time. Honestly, the only thing truly captivating here is her toxic persona.

Didn't it kind of shape her into who she is today? I mean—where did those scars even come from?
🤷

And what exactly is unclear about that?

not really—just because someone’s been through some stuff doesn't mean they're automatically toxic, right?

A toxic individual can leave someone’s very soul fractured and cause irreparable harm to a child, only to then navigate those consequences with their signature brand of malice... and that is precisely where the strength and sheer scale of Jennifer's performance lies.

It strikes me that the toxicity presented here is merely a byproduct of trauma. Everything about her suggests she was once a desperate housewife, perhaps clinging to a sense of dark humor as a coping mechanism. Throughout the entire film, she exists in this sort of limbo—utterly fascinated by death and suicide, yet lacking any actual impulse to act on those morbid curiosities. It is a quintessential indie film trope.