The Cake Eaters

"The cake eaters" is above all a picture with characters full of humanity, and the merit has to be given to the screenwriter, who offered intense and heartful dialogues, as well as to the director, who was able to guide a talented cast, as to convey the depth of their dramatic roles, without ever making them sound pathetic or unnecessarily melodramatic. There's a strong dignity in each of the characters, each one having to come to terms with old unsolved issues and relationships. The theme of love, at every age, at every stage, in every form is unraveled with a strong consciousness of all the single and unique problems, difficulties, but also positive involvement, that each single story may carry. I loved the touching story between Georgia and "Beagle", as it shows such delicacy, although facing complicated issues, such as disability and virginity. But in general, all the themes of the movie, from love to loss, to death, betrayal, seem to be treated with such tact,with such a sympathetic attitude towards the frailty of human beings, that also the overall sense of drama is softened, and a final sense of peace and relief is to be appreciated. A drama capable of making you feel good, a rare cinema experience.

I love independent movies but to be honest I watched The Cake Eaters because of Kristin Stewart. I've seen quite a few of her movies in the last weeks and aside from that Twilight crap I've came to the conclusion that she's a great actress and her performance in this film is no exception.Here she plays Georgia Kaminski,a teenager that suffers from Friedreich's ataxia, a genetic disease that causes damage to the nervous system among other things.Her mother Elizabeth is overzealous and her grandmother, Marg, is her escape.She doesn't have that much time and wants to experience love before its too late. She meets Beagle,played by Aaron Stanford, a shy 20 year old who works in the school cafeteria,they quickly bond and become close and she decides to loose her virginity to him.Beagle is part of the The Kimbrough family.Easy is the patriarch and he's grieving over the recent loss of his wife,Guy is the older son who has been away from the family and just returned after learning that his mother had passed away, and Beagle is the youngest son. The film explores the lives of this two interconnected families. The Cake Eaters is independent film-making at his best,my only complaint is that the movie was too short. How many times do you hear that? Exactly, the movie was that good. I just feel like the story could have been explored more and it could had been taken to another level.I don't know why the director didn't push the envelope a little,he clearly knew what he was doing and the story had great potential; don't take me wrong,this is a very good movie, I just think with more running time it could have been a tremendous movie. Kristin Stewart's performance is truly incredible.When playing characters with these type of diseases, there's always a tendency to overact or go over the top but she played this role perfectly.The academy award nominee Bruce Dern who played Easy was great as well. A great piece of work that left me wanting more.

7.5/10

If you only know Kristen S. as "Bella", than you haven't seen her full Spectrum yet. This is one of the films where she can show what she is really capable of. Of course this being an ensemble piece, there are quite a few other people, who are all really good in their roles. And while this is a man trying to get past his ... well past (I'm talking about the script writer), it still is able to affect other people (the viewers), too.

Of course a drama isn't something that will get all people excited and there are quite a few things, that might get you off the movie. But if you take the time and invest in the characters as the filmmakers did, you will come to like it. Plus the audio commentary is a really nice one to listen to.

It deals with human relationships in their particular circumstances. Each of these two families has special conditions. In the past, as well as over time, we like to see the continuation of the film at the middle, but it seems that the film suddenly loses its feature and leaves us with an entirely unfinished one. In fact, one of the three parts of the film's effect is left to the end that is surprising. Kristine Stewart, in the role of Georgia, plays a fantastic role and satisfactory view of the character of the story, and to some extent the core of the film finds out with his story and circumstances. A girl who has a nerve system disorder and her movement status is severely affected by her illness and does not have much time to live until she comes to the conclusion that she will continue to live in a different way. He is looking for a relationship with Dwight, but not in a love affair, but just for experience and happening. On the other hand, the father of Dwight, who recently lost his wife, is moving forward with the grandmother of Georgia in the past, and the confrontation between these two events led to a story that spells the way in the final sequences of the film Depicting where the father of Dwight and the grandmother of Georgia share with each other what is happening. Despite the fascination of the story, we did not witness the endearing and fruitful of the film.

In this superbly rendered drama from Mary Stuart Masterson, two small-town families find their lives unexpectedly intertwined when the quiet, socially awkward Beagle Kimbrough (Aaron Stanford) invites the romantic attentions of Georgia Kaminski (Kristen Stewart), a young girl with a rare but terminal nervous disease who knows her window of opportunity is rapidly closing. Much to the chagrin of her domineering mother, and the chilly audits of her otherwise zesty grandmother, Georgia decides to follow her feelings to wherever it is they lead her. Meanwhile, Beagle's older brother Guy (Jayce Bartok), the wayward son, returns from a dead-end bid to become a musician and struggles to reconcile himself with estranged father Easy (Bruce Dern) the town butcher, whose wife (Guy and Beagle's mother) has recently passed away.

There are so many points in this movie where a less steady hand might have foundered the effort, either by overplaying the sentiment card, or by trying to hard to push the tragic undertones, but the film finds an immaculate balance, that golden middle-of-the-road equilibrium that just gets rarer the more time goes by. The characters are so genuine, their stories so real, that the film exacts an impact that is no less raw, and no less memorable, than the trials and tribulations of families we know in life.

The first scene offers a perfect illustration of everything that's right with the movie: Beagle and Easy sit across from each other at the breakfast table, Easy contemplating such bold measures as changing his breakfast cereal, Beagle listening, responding in monosyllables, almost without thinking, and from this one tiny encounter we glean the whole spectrum of what their relationship has become – perfunctory, habitual, and void of energy.

With writing this precise, and with performances so nuanced and natural that all of Hollywood's clichés are swept under the carpet without so much as a whimper, the stage is set for perfection.

Which is what this movie is – perfection.