- Email: [email protected]
Recovery: a piece of cake
Insight
Films Recovery: a piece of cake There was much speculation given to Jennifer Aniston’s role as both lead actor and executive producer on her latest release, Cake, with critics claiming the film was merely an “antivanity project” designed to win her an Oscar. But, perhaps now the Oscar season has passed with Aniston having been overlooked entirely, critics might now be able to see the film’s merits as a sensitive, provocative, and at times blackly comic look at a woman experiencing chronic pain. Aniston gives a stunning performance playing Claire, a woman in perpetual suffering after a car crash that has left devastating emotional and physical scars. After the death by suicide of a woman in her support group, Claire becomes fixated on the event and the effect it has had on the family left behind. The film shows a woman whose physical healing is at the mercy of her mental wellbeing, which has deteriorated through an addiction to self-medication and alcohol. Although prescribed physiotherapy and counselling for more than a year since the crash, Claire’s recovery process seems stagnant. Her regular attendance at these sessions is soon revealed as merely a means to continue receiving medication, and thus the cycle continues. Claire’s choice, although subconscious, is to live with physical pain to avoid ever having to deal with her emotional torment.
Cake also shows how pain manifests itself differently in each individual, and how there is no right way to recover from great trauma. At the very beginning we see a nebulous counselling process that seems too hollow to ever get to the bottom of Claire’s depression. Her almost motherdaughter relationship with her housekeeper seems to keep her more buoyant than any of the medical interventions. However, it is not until a particularly black-humoured rapport grows with the husband of the dead woman in her support group that her recovery begins, one of the most interesting aspects of the film. Through black comedy, Claire is able to discuss topics that she had previously felt too uncomfortable to broach. This convention is equally helpful in letting us, the audience, open ourselves up to a topic which can seem difficult to digest. Greater use of such humour might have added more buoyancy to a film that keenly follows a realistic—but somewhat slow—recovery arc. Regardless, this film worth watching. Although at times it lacks the punch needed to draw mass audiences, Cake is a captivating film that provides a rich and textured portrayal of an illness which often struggles to be visible.
Cake Directed by Daniel Barnz, 2014 Running time: 102 min
Leanne Davis
“I wish I had cancer”, Alice tells her husband John (played by Alec Baldwin). “You don’t mean that”, he says; but at that moment, you know that she really does. Without being inflammatory—a slur on the devastation faced by patients with cancer—this moment is a desolate one for Alice. As a respected and passionate linguistics professor, the enormity of what and whom she will start to lose is absolute. Soon after her 50th birthday, Alice, who understands herself through her intellect and the world through language and communication, begins to recognise that her cognitive abilities are failing her. Still Alice is a psychological and moving narrative about the art of losing. It starts when Alice receives her diagnosis of early-onset dementia, a rare familial disease that is rapidly degenerative, and ends with a women who is still Alice, but different. Julianne Moore is a perfect Alice. In love with her work, surrounded by a successful and loving family, she is balanced, grounded, and content. Alice has few gripes. In fact, the only slight hiccup is her concern for her youngest daughter, Lydia (Kristen Stewart), who has broken away from the family fold to search for her identity in www.thelancet.com/psychiatry Vol 2 April 2015
Los Angeles as an actor. Moore has a mesmerising quality of calm self-assurance, but it is not nauseating, and it rarely leaves her, even at breaking point. Her feelings are not suppressed but admirably contained. The theme of loss is overt but also finds subtle ways to draw you in. Close-up cinematic shots bring us closer to Alice’s world, and details often missed by the eye are documented like memories throughout the film. Simultaneously, control and independence seem to drain from Moore’s face as she becomes increasingly disorientated and frightened. Lydia can and does talk about her mother’s illness, while her siblings seem to fade away. “What’s it like?” she asks her mother, and Alice tells her, in a few words: it’s like she is losing herself, and she can’t find herself. The cruelty of this disease is explored, with varnished Hollywood restraint, both in the disintegration of Alice, and for those who love her. It also enters the minds of those observing, fueling a palpable fear and imaginings about how it could and might affect you. Alice fights hard to hold on, with an inspiring resilience, but her deterioration is inevitable and time is running out.
Sony Pictures Classics
The art of losing
Still Alice Directed by Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland, 2014 Running time: 101 min
303
Films Recovery: a piece of cake There was much speculation given to Jennifer Aniston’s role as both lead actor and executive producer on her latest release, Cake, with critics claiming the film was merely an “antivanity project” designed to win her an Oscar. But, perhaps now the Oscar season has passed with Aniston having been overlooked entirely, critics might now be able to see the film’s merits as a sensitive, provocative, and at times blackly comic look at a woman experiencing chronic pain. Aniston gives a stunning performance playing Claire, a woman in perpetual suffering after a car crash that has left devastating emotional and physical scars. After the death by suicide of a woman in her support group, Claire becomes fixated on the event and the effect it has had on the family left behind. The film shows a woman whose physical healing is at the mercy of her mental wellbeing, which has deteriorated through an addiction to self-medication and alcohol. Although prescribed physiotherapy and counselling for more than a year since the crash, Claire’s recovery process seems stagnant. Her regular attendance at these sessions is soon revealed as merely a means to continue receiving medication, and thus the cycle continues. Claire’s choice, although subconscious, is to live with physical pain to avoid ever having to deal with her emotional torment.
Cake also shows how pain manifests itself differently in each individual, and how there is no right way to recover from great trauma. At the very beginning we see a nebulous counselling process that seems too hollow to ever get to the bottom of Claire’s depression. Her almost motherdaughter relationship with her housekeeper seems to keep her more buoyant than any of the medical interventions. However, it is not until a particularly black-humoured rapport grows with the husband of the dead woman in her support group that her recovery begins, one of the most interesting aspects of the film. Through black comedy, Claire is able to discuss topics that she had previously felt too uncomfortable to broach. This convention is equally helpful in letting us, the audience, open ourselves up to a topic which can seem difficult to digest. Greater use of such humour might have added more buoyancy to a film that keenly follows a realistic—but somewhat slow—recovery arc. Regardless, this film worth watching. Although at times it lacks the punch needed to draw mass audiences, Cake is a captivating film that provides a rich and textured portrayal of an illness which often struggles to be visible.
Cake Directed by Daniel Barnz, 2014 Running time: 102 min
Leanne Davis
“I wish I had cancer”, Alice tells her husband John (played by Alec Baldwin). “You don’t mean that”, he says; but at that moment, you know that she really does. Without being inflammatory—a slur on the devastation faced by patients with cancer—this moment is a desolate one for Alice. As a respected and passionate linguistics professor, the enormity of what and whom she will start to lose is absolute. Soon after her 50th birthday, Alice, who understands herself through her intellect and the world through language and communication, begins to recognise that her cognitive abilities are failing her. Still Alice is a psychological and moving narrative about the art of losing. It starts when Alice receives her diagnosis of early-onset dementia, a rare familial disease that is rapidly degenerative, and ends with a women who is still Alice, but different. Julianne Moore is a perfect Alice. In love with her work, surrounded by a successful and loving family, she is balanced, grounded, and content. Alice has few gripes. In fact, the only slight hiccup is her concern for her youngest daughter, Lydia (Kristen Stewart), who has broken away from the family fold to search for her identity in www.thelancet.com/psychiatry Vol 2 April 2015
Los Angeles as an actor. Moore has a mesmerising quality of calm self-assurance, but it is not nauseating, and it rarely leaves her, even at breaking point. Her feelings are not suppressed but admirably contained. The theme of loss is overt but also finds subtle ways to draw you in. Close-up cinematic shots bring us closer to Alice’s world, and details often missed by the eye are documented like memories throughout the film. Simultaneously, control and independence seem to drain from Moore’s face as she becomes increasingly disorientated and frightened. Lydia can and does talk about her mother’s illness, while her siblings seem to fade away. “What’s it like?” she asks her mother, and Alice tells her, in a few words: it’s like she is losing herself, and she can’t find herself. The cruelty of this disease is explored, with varnished Hollywood restraint, both in the disintegration of Alice, and for those who love her. It also enters the minds of those observing, fueling a palpable fear and imaginings about how it could and might affect you. Alice fights hard to hold on, with an inspiring resilience, but her deterioration is inevitable and time is running out.
Sony Pictures Classics
The art of losing
Still Alice Directed by Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland, 2014 Running time: 101 min
303