The Cake Eaters

USA Release: 13th March 2009

Watched on LoveFilm Instant: Monday 4th June 2012

Rating: 15

Genre: Drama, Romance

Runtime: 1hr 26mins

Tagline: For everything we lose... there's someone we find

IMDb Plot Synopsis: 'The Cake Eaters' is a quirky, small town, ensemble drama that explores the lives of two interconnected families coming to terms with love in the face of loss. They are brought together by the return of one family's son - a reunion that conjures up old ghosts and issues that must be addressed. 

My Review: The Cake Eaters took me by surprise. It began slowly and grew and grew until it flowered into quite a captivatingly quirky film. I’ve never seen Kristen Stewart act so well and she takes on quite a challenging role as Georgia who has a degenerative disease called Friedreich's Ataxia which affects the nervous system. 

She completely does the role justice and she becomes this girl with all her movements and body language and fragility in body and strength in mind. It’s truly incredible to see and now if anyone says anything about how stiff she is as an actor you can just point them in this direction as it’s definitely changed my opinion of her upside down - she is definitely more than Bella from Twilight. 

Outside of Kristen Stewart who was what drew me initially to the film, Aaron Stanford as Beagle was also excellent. 

The film was quiet but there is more to it than meets the eye - it was raw and emotional and sometimes hard to take. The ending especially confused me. The film is really short by modern standards and I think they could have taken it somewhere else, somewhere further and it would have had more impact and poignancy. Another thing that irritates me is the title as I still don’t see the link between cake eating and the contents of this film. It’s probably some deep metaphorical thing but it irritates me all the same. 

It’s something different, ultimately, and there for that it was refreshing and sweet for a bank holiday afternoon.

Score: 6.5/10