Jennifer Aniston dares not to wear makeup! But ‘Cake’ deserves higher praise than that

In the lead up to the release of Jennifer Aniston’s latest film, “Cake,” a lot was made of her physical appearance. Jennifer does an entire movie sans makeup, how shocking! Aniston looking terrible – how daring! Why would a beautiful woman make herself so unbecoming? To act, of course … and perhaps to win awards along the way? Maybe even an Oscar?

Aniston sure campaigned hard for recognition. By all accounts, she enthusiastically hit the awards circuit for “Cake,” doing lots of interviews, attending voting guild luncheons, and showing up for special press screenings of the film.

In the process she gained some positive critical attention and earned herself Best Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t quite make the cut for an Oscar nod last week.

So was she robbed of an Oscar? Or has all this buzz really been more about a celebrity going slumming than a quality performance being lost in the glare of celebrity?

I’d say that Aniston certainly wasn’t robbed of an Academy Award nomination, but if she had been nominated, it wouldn’t have been a scandal either. She’s very good in a marginal indie film that wouldn’t be getting much attention without her.

Aniston plays a smart, successful professional named Claire who, following a horrific car crash, suddenly finds herself forced to live with chronic pain. She’s not taking it very well.

Scarred physically and psychologically, a year after the accident, she’s run her husband off and can’t resist being unpleasant to just about everyone she encounters. More or less letting herself go, she uncomfortably shuffles around her L.A. home in drab, loose-fitting clothes and finds her only solace in painkillers and drink.

Unable to drive because of the constant pain, she has a longtime, and long-suffering, housekeeper who drives her to doctor’s appointments and meetings of a chronic pain support group. When a member of that support group commits suicide, Claire is haunted by her ghost. Is a life of pain even worth living, she asks herself over and over.

This may sound like an utterly depressing movie but what saves it, to some degree, is Claire’s mordant wit. Sure she’s bitchy and a general pain to be around, but at least she has a dark sense of humor about it.

Aniston’s natural sense of comic timing, honed to perfection on “Friends,” is invaluable in making Claire a little more sympathetic. Her black humor humanizes her and allows the audience to empathize with her situation even as it may criticize her.

In Aniston’s hands, Claire is a fascinating and complex character but she’s stuck in a much less complex movie. The narrative arc of the film is pretty much straight out of the Lifetime Channel storyline guidebook.

As well-acted as this movie is – the supporting cast includes Anna Kendrick, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Sam Worthington – it can’t escape the too-familiar terrain of the script. Eventually, and predictably, major revelations are made and resolutions achieved.

But “Cake” would have been more powerful
if it had been content with just providing an unsparing look at life with chronic pain. Now that would have been original.